The GBC Green Building Centre: Open For Business Innovation

The Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for the Federal Economic Development agency of Southern Ontario (FEDDEV) and Member of Parliament for Etobicoke-Lakeshore Bernard Trottier were at our Casa Loma campus today to officially open the Green Building Centre. Many of our industry partners were on hand to celebrate the opening. The Green Building Centre is GBC's newest applied research facility that is supporting the growing Canadian green and smart building market. Prior to the ribbon cutting, The Minister, MP Trottier and industry guests toured the various labs developed with funding from FEDDEV:

• Building Information Modeling
• Advanced Prototyping
• Building Materials
• Building Sciences
• Building Automation

The Green Building Centre also features a Building Accelerator and Entrepreneurship Space for industry partners to work with our students and faculty on applied research projects.

Minister Goodyear, who in a former post was the Minister of State for Science and Technology, has presided over the development of the college applied research capacity in Canada. In his speech Minister Goodyear talked about the strengths of Canada's excellent basic science R&D capacity (as recently outlined by the Council of Canadian Academies), but the need to also focus on developing our business R&D capacity. Facilities like the Green Building Centre are helping companies to invest in R&D and to develop new products and services. This applied research helps to translate the results of basic science into innovation, which means jobs and wealth in the economy. Already the Green Building Centre  has resulted in 59 new jobs, and helped our partner firms commercialize new products in the green building industry.

When companies work with colleges and polytechnics on applied research, not only are new products taken to market, but the next generation of skilled, innovation-literate graduates gain valuable industry experience. This experience complements the technical skills gained through our programs. The multiplier effect of funding such as that from FEDDEV is helping George Brown College to help industry to innovate in important areas of the economy. (In addition to Green Building, we are very active through our Food Innovation Research Studio and in health technology). Today's opening marks the official launch of the Green Building Centre, where we are open for business innovation.