Alberta Infrastructure: New School Standards Slash Energy Efficiency

CALGARY, AB — The province has quietly rewritten the rulebook for new schools in Calgary, trading two decades of environmental standards for speed and cheaper price tags. The shift — revealed at the Calgary Board of Education's February 10 board meeting — means new schools will be built to the absolute minimum energy efficiency allowed under Canadian code, a stark departure from the CBE's long-standing policy of building every new school to at least LEED Silver certification.

The move prioritizes "roofs over heads" as Alberta races to open 200,000 new student spaces by 2032. But the price of that speed is now coming into focus: higher long-term energy bills, a direct collision with Calgary's net-zero-by-2050 climate goals, and schools that will likely need expensive retrofits before they hit middle age.

The Switch: From LEED Silver to Rock Bottom

For nearly 20 years, the CBE mandated that all new schools meet LEED Silver — a global standard that measures energy conservation, water usage, indoor air quality, and thermal comfort. It was the middle-tier certification, not the gold standard, but it ensured schools were built for the long haul.

Now, Alberta Infrastructure — the provincial department that controls school construction dollars — is directing boards toward the National Energy Code of Canada (NECB) Tier 1. That's the baseline. The floor. The minimum required by law.

"Building to Tier 1 is cheaper upfront," CBE Superintendent of Facilities Dany Breton told trustees, "but a building would need to reach Tier 2 just to match the energy consumption of what we used to build." Translation: these schools will cost more to heat, cool, and maintain — and those bills will land on the CBE's operational budget, which is already stretched thin after the province eliminated the Supplemental Enrolment Growth Grant last year.

The $8.6 Billion Accelerator

The province's logic is simple: Calgary's population is exploding, and the old way of building schools — custom designs, lengthy approvals, higher certifications — takes too long. The Schools Now construction accelerator, an $8.6 billion initiative launched in fall 2024, is designed to fast-track projects by using core designs and re-using blueprints. Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said in November that the program has already shaved an average of six months off completion times.

The 2025 Alberta Budget allocated $2.6 billion over three years for K-12 infrastructure, a $505 million increase from the previous year. The goal is bold: 200,000 new and modernized student spaces by the 2031-2032 school year. But speed comes with trade-offs, and energy efficiency is the first casualty.

The Climate Math Doesn't Add Up

NECB Tier 1 is an estimated 30 percent less energy efficient than LEED Silver. That gap matters, especially in a city that approved a legally binding target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Schools built today are expected to last 50 years or more. If Calgary's new schools are locked into Tier 1 efficiency, they'll either blow past the city's emissions budget or require costly retrofits in a decade or two to meet climate mandates.

The irony wasn't lost on trustees. At the same February 10 meeting, the CBE celebrated Balmoral School — a LEED-certified building — as one of Calgary's top-performing commercial properties for energy efficiency and low GHG emissions. It was the school's second consecutive year earning that distinction through the city's BenchmarkYYC program. "We're celebrating a high-efficiency school," one trustee noted, "while acknowledging that future schools will likely never meet that same benchmark."

What NECB Tier 1 Leaves Out

Unlike LEED, which evaluates buildings across multiple categories — water conservation, indoor air quality, noise pollution, thermal comfort — NECB Tier 1 focuses almost exclusively on energy. That means future schools won't be held to the same standards for water efficiency or insulation that keeps classrooms comfortable during Calgary's temperature swings. For students and staff, that could mean hotter summers, colder winters, and higher utility bills for the board.

The Players

The shift is being driven by Alberta Infrastructure, now led by Minister Martin Long, who was sworn in on February 27, 2025. Premier Danielle Smith issued Long a mandate letter in September emphasizing predictable capital planning and faster procurement. The message was clear: build faster, build cheaper, and prioritize capacity over long-term efficiency.

CBE trustees, led by voices like Susan Vukadinovic, were caught off guard. Vukadinovic questioned the implications for energy efficiency and long-term costs during the February 10 meeting, but the decision wasn't theirs to make. Alberta Infrastructure controls the capital funding and sets the standards. School boards follow the playbook or they don't get the money.

The Long-Term Bill

The CBE's 2025-26 budget is $1.67 billion, with an additional $55 million in provincial funding. But enrolment is climbing, student complexity is increasing, and the loss of the SEGG grant has tightened the squeeze. Now, the board faces the prospect of higher operational costs from less efficient buildings — costs that will compound over decades.

A July 2025 Alberta government document — since removed from the web — indicated that LEED-certified schools had lower capital costs and lower 40-year energy costs in most comparisons. The province hasn't released any studies comparing the long-term operational costs of Tier 1 schools to LEED Silver schools, leaving school boards to guess at the real price of the accelerator program.

What Happens Next

The province is moving forward with the Schools Now program. Five more projects were fast-tracked in November 2025, and more are in the pipeline. The first wave of Tier 1 schools will likely break ground this year. Whether they'll need retrofits before they're paid off remains an open question — one Calgary taxpayers will eventually answer.