MLI Select awards points for energy efficiency, and those points translate directly into insurance premium reductions and longer amortization. Claiming them requires energy modelling and an attestation from a qualified professional.
MLI Select is CMHC's multi-unit mortgage insurance product, and it works on a points system. Points are earned across affordability, accessibility and energy efficiency, and the total determines the benefits: reduced insurance premiums and extended amortization periods.
Energy efficiency is frequently the most controllable of the three. Affordability and accessibility commitments constrain how a building operates for decades. Energy points are earned once, in design and construction, and they do not restrict who you rent to.
CMHC requires the energy attestation to be signed by a qualified professional with energy modelling experience — a Professional Engineer, Architect, Certified Engineering Technologist, or Certified Energy Manager.
This catches people out. A Registered Energy Advisor credential, which covers EnerGuide work on housing, does not satisfy it. We hold the qualifying credentials in-house.
New construction. The thresholds are expressed as improvement over the applicable code baseline. The critical variable is timing: energy points achieved through design decisions — orientation, envelope, glazing ratio, mechanical selection — cost a fraction of points achieved by adding equipment to a finished design. Involve the modeller during schematic design, not at permit.
Existing buildings. Improvement is measured against current performance, which means the starting point has to be established credibly. A defensible baseline needs real utility data, not assumptions — and that requirement catches owners who have never benchmarked.
MLI Select was tightened in late 2025, with revised points tiers and thresholds. Program parameters, forms and deadlines move. We confirm current requirements at the time of submission rather than working from last year's rules — and you should expect any advisor to do the same.
An MLI Select model is an engineering deliverable for a financing decision. It is not an energy audit, and it will not tell you how to operate the building better once it is occupied.
For owners who want both — the financing benefit and the operational improvement — the model and an audit share a great deal of underlying work. Commissioning them together is meaningfully cheaper than commissioning them a year apart.
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A compliance deadline, an incentive application, a financing requirement, or a capital plan. Tell us which, and we will tell you what you need and what it will cost — as a fixed fee, before any work starts.
If you do not need an audit, we will say so.