Greening Greater Toronto

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Commercial Building Energy Initiative

Improving the energy efficiency of our building stock presents a vast untapped potential to increase our bottom lines, better our workplaces and protect our environment. Commercial buildings account for one third of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the GTA, and consume 37 per cent of the electricity and 17 per cent of the natural gas. There is a well documented “efficiency gap” between the potential investments in cost-effective energy efficiency and the low levels of investment that are actually occurring. Barriers to broader adoption of commercial building energy efficiency include:

• The lack of a measurement standard for energy performance
• Difficulty in acquiring data to build business cases
• Ineffective communication between tenants and building owners
• Lack of broader education about energy efficiency

Greening Greater Toronto has launched the Commercial Building Energy Initiative to address these barriers and improve the energy efficiency of the building stock in the GTA and beyond.

Our initiative

Provide Champions: The Commercial Building Energy Leadership Council

• The Leadership Council will identify stakeholders, develop implementation plans and champion commitments to reduce their own organizations’ carbon footprints.

Eliminate Knowledge Gaps: Business Case and Living Library

• Bridge the knowledge gaps between stakeholders by developing the business case for energy efficiency and building a “living library” catalogue of case studies and energy benchmarks to promote best-practices for energy efficiency.

Greening Our Workplaces Tenant Series

• Hosting building-specific events to showcase recent commercial tenant-led energy efficiency initiatives for neighbouring tenants of the same building.

Owner/Tenant Working Groups

• Identifying and facilitating landlord-tenant working groups at commercial buildings that have started to undertake energy efficiency initiatives.

Corporate Challenge

• Encouraging building owners, with the support of their tenants, to commit to establishing energy use baselines, track progress, and launch a challenge at the Toronto City Summit Alliance’s February 2011 Summit.

Expected results

• Significant reductions in the energy consumption of the GTA building stock
• Ontario becoming a North American centre for energy efficiency with significant exports and a number of leading energy efficiency-related companies based here
• Support the development of jobs in the energy efficiency industry across Ontario

Progress to date

Greening Our Workplaces Tenant Series launch (March 26, 2010):

• On March 26, Brookfield Properties and Greening Greater Toronto hosted a landmark first meeting of the Tenant Series with 30 representatives of tenants in First Canadian Place, Exchange Tower and Lombard Place. Greening Greater Toronto and Boston Consulting Group presented the business case for energy efficiency, BMO and Gowlings gave compelling accounts of their experience and results with energy efficiency initiatives, Brookfield and Halsall Associates shared Brookfield’s initiatives, and how they could support tenant efforts, and BOMA Toronto shared highlights of its Conservation and Demand Management program which provides financial incentives to undertake electricity conservation projects.
• Stikeman Elliott LLP hosted the second event at GWL’s Commerce Court West on May 27.

Owner/Tenant Working Groups (January 28, 2010):

• Greening Greater Toronto announced that BMO Financial Group and Brookfield Properties have committed to work together to reduce energy usage, and are piloting this approach at First Canadian Place in downtown Toronto.

Commercial Building Retrofit Summit (September 29, 2009):

• In partnership with BOMA Toronto, Greening Greater Toronto hosted the first Commercial Building Retrofit Leadership Council meeting and Summit. Members of the Leadership Council and other industry leaders participated in an open dialogue about solutions for increased energy efficiency and environmental sustainability in the city’s existing building stock. Click here to view the Summit backgrounder.

Leadership Council

• Greening Greater Toronto has convened a Leadership Council of 48 senior executive members that formally committed to work together to make office towers more energy efficient and reduce overall carbon output. Representatives include:
• Owners of over 40 percent of the GTA commercial office building stock
• Tenants occupying almost 40 million square feet of commercial space