© Courtesy of BOMA Canada
For Dan Martel, founder of Four Winds & Associates, meaningful progress has never been about arriving in a community with a ready-made solution. For more than four decades, his work has centred on helping Indigenous communities build a green workforce and advance community development. Over that time, he has seen what happens when programs come and go, outside experts leave, and the knowledge needed to carry the work forward is left with them.
Martel’s approach is different: start with relationships, listen to what communities need, and build the knowledge and capacity that allow people to take the next steps themselves.
That philosophy is now at the heart of a collaboration between Four Winds & Associates and BOMA Canada, bringing energy-efficiency resources, building expertise, and new opportunities to Indigenous communities through BOMA Enspire.
The partnership brings together two organizations with different, but complementary, strengths. For more than a century, BOMA Canada has served as a trusted national voice for Canada’s commercial real estate industry, supporting building owners and managers through industry expertise, education, advocacy, and programs that advance better building performance. Four Winds, meanwhile, has built decades of trusted relationships with Indigenous communities by spanning economic development, governance, funding, community engagement, and climate resilience.
Through BOMA Enspire, supported by Environment Climate Change Canada, that experience is being put toward a shared goal: helping Indigenous communities improve the performance of the buildings they rely on while ensuring the knowledge, tools, and benefits of that work remain in the community. Participating communities can access fully funded energy audits, targeted recommissioning, building management tools, training, coaching, and support preparing for future retrofit funding.
For Martel, the opportunity goes well beyond lowering a utility bill.
“We missed out so much on oil and gas. We missed out on all these great opportunities. If we miss out on green energy, it’s going to be a sin,” he said.
A PARTNERSHIP BUILT ON TRUST
Four Winds’ approach recognizes that every community has its own priorities, challenges, history, and ambitions. Rather than bringing an off-the-shelf solution, the organization works alongside communities to understand what is already there, what is needed, and what can be strengthened.
That made Four Winds a natural partner as BOMA Canada looked to extend the reach of BOMA Enspire into Indigenous communities. BOMA brought building-performance expertise, industry connections, and access to resources through the program. Four Winds brought longstanding relationships and an understanding of how to work with Indigenous communities in a responsive, rather than prescriptive, way.
For BOMA Canada President and CEO Benjamin Shinewald, the partnership also represents an opportunity to extend BOMA Enspire’s reach into communities that sometimes are not on the commercial real estate industry’s radar.
“We are especially proud to be partnering with FourWinds to drive the success of BOMA Enspire into Indigenous and remote communities across Canada. This is part of our industry and country that doesn’t get the attention it deserves,” he said.
FROM BUILDING PERFORMANCE TO COMMUNITY CAPACITY
The work begins by giving communities a clear picture of how their buildings are performing and where improvements can make the greatest difference.
Participating communities can receive suitable ASHRAE-level energy audits examining building systems, energy consumption, asset conditions, and opportunities to improve efficiency. Targeted recommissioning can then identify practical improvements to controls, ventilation, scheduling, maintenance, and other existing systems, often without requiring major construction or retrofits.
For Martel, however, the value of an audit depends on what happens next. Building operators need to understand the findings, recognize opportunities, and know how that information can support future decisions. Where appropriate, local building operators are involved in recommissioning, so they can see how issues are identified and addressed.
That emphasis on knowledge transfer closely aligns with BOMA Enspire’s broader focus on building capacity alongside improving performance. The objective is not greater dependence on outside consultants, but greater capacity within communities to manage facilities, ask the right questions, and make informed decisions about what comes next.
TURNING INFORMATION INTO OPPORTUNITY
The partnership is also helping communities turn building information into something actionable.
Martel founded Awetza, a data management system designed for Indigenous organizations. Building profiles, equipment information, audits, maintenance records, photographs, reports, and other documentation can be brought together in one place rather than remaining scattered across files, spreadsheets, and consultant reports.
Through BOMA Enspire and its collaboration with Four Winds, energy audits, recommissioning, building data, and existing asset-condition information can be brought together to help communities identify priorities and prepare for future investment.
That is particularly important when funding opportunities arise. Knowing that a building needs work is different from having the documentation, analysis, and planning required to move a project forward. By helping communities organize their information and develop clearer funding-readiness plans, the partnership can support the transition from identifying a need to pursuing implementation.
Through its broader Deep Retrofit Accelerator Initiative (DRAI) work, Four Winds has already helped Indigenous communities unlock significant funding for retrofit construction. The collaboration with BOMA Canada is building on that momentum, helping other communities turn energy and asset information into funding-ready plans while expanding the work from Alberta into British Columbia and Saskatchewan.
REACHING THE “LAST MILE”
Martel describes Indigenous communities as the “last mile” for initiatives that are often developed elsewhere but do not always reach communities in ways that can be sustained.
For BOMA Canada and Four Winds, reaching that last mile means more than delivering technology or funding. It means helping Indigenous communities develop the knowledge to use those resources, preparing them for future opportunities, and ensuring that improvements can continue after a particular program ends.
That is why a “legacy concept” has been intentionally built into the initiative. Although the current project has a defined funding period, the aim is for the relationships, systems, skills, and knowledge established through it to remain useful long afterwards.
“It’s got to be sustainable,” Martel said. “That’s part of our whole legacy.”
The idea captures what makes the partnership meaningful. A more efficient heating system matters. Lower energy costs and reduced emissions matter. So does leaving communities better positioned to manage their buildings, pursue investment, and determine their own next steps.
Martel has described Indigenous people as “caretakers of the earth,” while emphasizing that environmental stewardship is a responsibility shared by everyone.
Through BOMA Enspire, BOMA Canada and Four Winds are putting that shared responsibility into practice by combining industry expertise and resources with trusted relationships, local knowledge, and education.
Better buildings are an important outcome. Building lasting capacity may be the greater legacy.
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At BOMA, we lean into the skills and experiences of our members to develop inspired, objective-led programs that will drive the built environment forward and provide the resources for those same members to excel.