LEEP is a series of interrelated workshops and seminars that engage builders and renovators in the technology assessment, adoption, and feedback cycle to accelerate innovation with their companies and the residential construction industry.
LEEP accelerates energy efficient construction by enabling builders and renovators to reduce their time and risk identifying, exploring, and adopting innovations in the residential construction industry. Initiated by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) years ago, LEEP assists with bringing innovation into the market in a well thought-out and responsive way. LEEP is delivered regionally with the intention to establish an ongoing critical mass of builders and renovators that can identify the best innovations suited to their region which can, in turn, pull through a responsive supply chain.
The results include:
- Energy savings for homeowners
- Competitive advantage for participating builders, renovators, and manufacturers
- Builder and renovator driven enhancement to local building practice
Builders and Renovators use LEEP to:
- reduce their time and risk in finding and trying innovations that can help them build/renovate homes to higher levels of performance - better, faster, and more affordably,
- use federal research results to inform their technology decision making, and
- pool their buying power regionally to make it worthwhile for manufacturers to address specific issues for builders and renovators.
CHBA’S Role in LEEP
The CHBA has been supporting LEEP for more than 10 years and encourages its expansion because of its exceptional success in accelerating adoption and deployment of emerging technologies through its builder- and renovator-led model. It drives manufacturers to meet high-performance housing needs, helps local experts expand their knowledge and share best practices, and brings regional builders, renovators, trades, energy advisors and building officials together to review options and streamline implementation of innovation.
Now, CHBA is working with NRCan to scale the LEEP initiative. CHBA will be working closely with local and provincial Home Builders’ Associations to expand and deliver LEEP to strategic markets across Canada, moving LEEP from an ad-hoc approach to a coordinated national delivery. CHBA will conduct deep dives into specific technologies carried out by NRCan’s LEEP workshops and forums, leveraging its HBA network for regional delivery, with ‘best of’ forums refined to regional needs. CHBA is also uniquely positioned to disseminate the results across the Canadian home building and renovation industries and will do so through its expansive network and communication channels.