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Oxford First to Pilot CRBP Living Green Together Standards

In December 2016, Oxford’s Greater Toronto Area (GTA) multi-residential managed portfolio, made up of seven complexes and over 3,000 units, was the first property manager to successfully achieve the Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario’s Certified Rental Building Program (CRBP) Living GREEN Together™ Program Standards requirements.

Developed by the Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario (FRPO), the CRBP provides rental housing customers with quality assurance that their property is well-managed and environmentally responsible. The Living GREEN Together™ Program Standards are now a part of the CRBP quality assurance commitment and include 10 new environmental standards of practice.

The Standards focus on ensuring proper environmental management policies, such as purchasing, waste management, energy efficient operations and resident engagement. Over the past few years, the residential properties have installed and implemented low flush toilets, low flow faucets, LED lighting, low VOC paints and green cleaning which met compliance to the Standards. Additionally, these Standards are in line with Oxford’s Residential Operations Standards, making it an important and obvious choice to complete the program. Together with our residential customers we can make a difference for a healthier environment and place to live.

The CRBP Living Green Together Building Environmental Audit is a two-part process. The first part of the audit reviews and verifies head office/centralized documentation and practices that support the implementation of the Standards of Practice. The on-site portion of the environmental audit process is intended to verify through investigation, observation, discussion with staff and a review of documentation that the Living Green Together Environmental Standards of Practice have been implemented and that CRBP approved buildings are in compliance with the requirements of the Standards.

Oxford is proud to be the first to pilot the Environmental Audit two-part process and recognize the multi-residential buildings for their efforts related to energy efficiency, waste management, water conservation and other environmental initiatives.

EV Chargers at Oxford’s Buildings

On February 10, 2016, Ontario’s Premier Kathleen Wynne announced the new Electric Vehicle Charging Incentive Program as part of the province’s Climate Change Strategy. At Oxford, we are proud that our elected leaders thoughtfully chose to partner with Oxford and determined WaterPark Place as the most fitting building in the City of Toronto for such an announcement. In the last five years, Oxford has installed over 90 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations across our Canadian assets, demonstrating a natural extension of Oxford’s commitments and beliefs: a commitment to leadership in sustainability and customer service; and the belief that we can thrive in our environment, while our environment thrives.

LEED Platinum C&S at RBC WaterPark Place

At the core of our sustainability approach for our office portfolio is LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). One of Oxford's newest development projects, RBC WaterPark Place, was designed and built to achieve the title of Toronto's first LEED Core and Shell Platinum office building.

The 980,000 square foot, 30-storey office tower located in the heart of downtown Toronto represents an integral part of Toronto's waterfront revitalization. It provides unique access to a revitalized Queen’s Quay and is closely connected to the PATH network, Union Station and other key areas within the downtown fabric.

To meet its Platinum status, the building was designed to achieve a 51% energy savings and 36% indoor potable water savings. Further energy efficiency measures included:

• Dual duct ventilation with 100% outdoor air;
• Dedicated outdoor air delivery system with heat recovery;
• Building Automation System to control mechanical and electrical systems;
• Low lighting power density (1 W/sf) with LEDs in office spaces, as well as occupancy sensors on approximately 80% of lighting fixtures and continuously dimming day lighting sensors for 90% of fixtures in the perimeter zone;
• Connection to Enwave’s Deep Lake Water Cooling system; and
• Roller blinds integrated into the window system allowing more natural light in when open and keeping heat and light out when closed.

The building features 750 m² of green roofs, public transportation access for clear alternatives for commuting that are knit into the infrastructure of the city, 14 electric vehicle charging stations, extensive bicycle storage infrastructure, bird-friendly glass, rainwater harvesting for irrigation, and a tenant engagement program.

In 2016, the building achieved an Energy Star score of 100 – a distinction that has never been achieved in an office building of this size in Canada – and an unheard-of energy performance – 12 equivalent kilowatt hours per square foot. This makes the building the most energy efficient large office building in Ontario.

Is 90% Diversion Possible?

Centennial Place, located in Calgary, always had a comprehensive waste program that included single stream recycling, organics, coffee K-cups, e-waste, batteries, cigarette butts, wooden pallets, glass and light bulbs. Despite being able to recycle almost all waste produced in an office tower, its diversion rate had plateaued at 75%.

In 2016, Centennial Place completely revamped its waste and recycling program. It purchased a scale for the loading dock and had the cleaners label each bag of garbage, organics and recycling with the area in which it was produced. The cleaners weighed each bag and entered the data into a spread sheet so that a diversion rate could be calculated by floor.

The cleaners opened and sorted all bags of garbage, organics and recycling. On average they diverted about 66% of the garbage (by weight) back into the recycling or organics streams. As a result, the property has gone from emptying its garbage compactor once every month to once every three months. The compactor does not smell since all the organics have already been removed. As well, management was able to measure the effect of improved marketing on the food court waste receptacles, which increased the food court diversion from about 15% to just under 50%.

The data from this program is being used to produce a tenant scorecard, issued to the tenants on a quarterly basis. Tenants are celebrated quarterly with a trophy, and the annual winners with a floor-wide celebration. The tenant scorecard is discussed in all Client Relations Meetings to help tenants understand what they are doing well, and where to best focus their efforts to improve their recycling score. As a result of a poor recycling score on a quarterly scorecard, one of Centennial Place’s largest tenants has put together a focus group and is working with us to improve its diversion rate from about 65% to their goal of 80%.

As a result of this program, our diversion rate improved from about 75% in 2015 to about 86% in 2016. Based on the last half of 2016, we are anticipating that the diversion rate in 2017 will be over 90%.

LEED Gold and Beyond

At Oxford, we are no strangers to achieving the highest industry standards when it comes to green buildings. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), the internationally recognized certification system, is at the core of our sustainability approach for our office portfolio. We are enhancing the quality of our buildings – currently 70% of our office buildings are LEED certified and we are targeting 80% by the end of 2016.

Attaining LEED certification means enhanced energy efficiency, increased comfort and indoor air quality, and responsible resource and waste management. It also means taking a holistic approach to sustainability, one that encompasses the well-being of our tenants – creating healthy workplaces to help employees perform at their optimum levels, while reducing our environmental footprint.

Oxford has worked to achieve LEED for Existing Buildings, New Construction, Core and Shell, and even Commercial Interiors. We strive for low-cost measures and capital investments with quick paybacks and returns. Pushing the limits to go the extra distance for Gold and, more commonly now, Platinum makes financial and environmental sense – keeping our assets competitive and exceeding the expectations of our customers, stakeholders and communities.

Common LEED features for our buildings:

• Energy Star scores between 80 and 97
• Fine-tuned operation of building systems to achieve industry-leading energy efficiency
• Comprehensive green cleaning programs
• Water efficient washroom fixtures and cooling tower water management
• Active engagement of tenants to understand and contribute to green building initiatives

Implementing Sustainability in Our Shopping Centres

Our shopping centres continue to innovate and find ways to reduce their waste, whether it’s through our food courts or internal practices.

In an effort to elevate the food court dining experience and address environmental concerns, Food Central at Square One shopping centre and Dine on 3 at Yorkdale shopping centre have made a commitment to eliminate disposable dishes and cutlery, in favour of custom-designed dishware. There are no garbage bins. Customers bring their trays to a station where staff sorts the waste. The scullery service decreases waste by over 60% and reduces water usage through grey water recirculation and an energy efficient dishwashing system.

In terms of our internal practices, Les Promenades Gatineau recently transitioned to a paperless memo platform for all communications with its retailers. All memos are stored on Oxford’s intranet page for quick reference for our tenants, eliminating the need to print individual memos for each retailer.

Our Hillcrest Mall management team has also reduced their use of printed paper by reviewing tenant construction drawings digitally rather than on printed paper, promoting paperless rent payments from tenants and opting for electronic billing from vendors where available.

We are taking steps – large and small – to reduce waste at our shopping centres.

Toronto CREW Leadership Awards

Established in 1996, Toronto Commercial Real Estate Women (Toronto CREW) is group of key decision makers from some of the most influential corporations in Canada. Toronto CREW is committed to providing high-quality networking and leadership opportunities to assist in furthering the careers of each of its members.

During its 20th anniversary gala, hosted at one of Oxford’s office buildings, the lobby of 130 Adelaide W., awards were given out for the first time in 20 years for Excellence in Leadership, for Volunteer Engagement, and to a Rising Star.

The Excellence in Leadership award is given to someone with experience in the commercial real estate industry, stands out for her leadership qualities and achievements, and shows commitment to her career, the industry and community. The Rising Star award was given to someone who has worked in the commercial real estate industry for less than 10 years and whose initiatives in the industry stand out above all others.

Two of Oxford’s very own were awarded these prestigious awards:

1. Nancy Prenevost, Vice President, REM Legal, won the first ever Excellence in Leadership award. Nancy takes every opportunity she can to identify opportunities to promote women in the industry and to break down roadblocks in the industry that prevent women from advancing. Nancy is a true champion of Toronto CREW and the essence of what Toronto CREW was set up to accomplish.
2. Courtney Starr, General Manager at Canada Square, won the first ever Rising Star award. During her four years as a member of Toronto CREW, Courtney has been involved with the Programs Committee, and the Real Jobs Committee where she quickly moved from being a member to Vice Chair and now Chair. This past year, the Real Jobs Day hosted over 130 grade 11 and grade 12 female students for a fun and informative day focused on the various careers in the commercial real estate industry.

World-Class Energy Management

Through the leadership of energy professionals in Oxford’s head office, we’re taking energy management efforts in our office portfolio to another level. A strong foundation had been built through two successfully achieved corporate emissions/energy reduction targets, portfolio-wide real-time energy metering and recommissioning, and the integration of energy metrics into quarterly reporting. But there was still much more to do. In late 2013, the team successfully developed an “energy signature” for each Oxford office building showing how it performs in a range of temperatures throughout the year, and used this data to set a “predicted target” for each building. They then challenged each building to beat its best past performance to “Be the Best You Have Been”. Liviu Botan, Manager, Energy and Technical Services at Oxford, notes: “Our office buildings are achieving incremental energy savings of an average of 6% as a result of operators now having visibility into their energy data and their building’s performance through daily targets.” And the team is not stopping there. They are well on their way to benchmarking each building at a system level (base, heating, cooling) and working with site teams to develop a custom, absolute (ekWh/ft²) target to “Be the Best You Can Be”.

Leading Change in Our Industry

We are proud of the large number of Oxford employees who actively contribute to organizations and initiatives and drive global thought leadership in sustainability and real estate. Among their many affiliations, they are involved in the Canada Green Building Council, International Council of Shopping Centres, Global Reporting Initiative, Real Property Association of Canada, Building Owners and Managers Association of Canada, and Race to Reduce.

Oxford Place Offers World-Class Experience for Our Customers

In the summer of 2016, four Oxford buildings in downtown Vancouver came together under one name to offer customers a truly world-class experience. Leveraging services at all four buildings, Oxford Place, made up of MNP Tower, Oceanic Plaza, the Marine Building and Guinness Tower, offers an unmatched set of amenities including a best in class fitness centre, bicycle facility, conference rooms, a climbing wall, yoga and fitness classes, convenient parking, numerous restaurants and a corporate concierge. The inclusion of all four buildings now allows customers to utilize amenities across the complex.

Further to the amenities available, Oxford Place leads a world-class experience for our customers in the following ways:

1. LEED Gold Certifications – Oceanic Plaza, Guinness Tower and the historic Marine Building achieved LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification in 2016. Attaining LEED certification means enhanced energy efficiency, increased comfort and indoor air quality, and responsible resource and waste management. In the process, the buildings’ heating and cooling systems were upgraded to ensure the highest standard of indoor air quality. The certification process involved working with customers to gather pertinent information about energy use and waste diversion – a joint effort between all. Oxford Place certainly leaves a sustainable mark on the Vancouver skyline.
2. Connectivity to the City – Working with the City of Vancouver, a crosswalk was completed, linking Guinness Tower to Oceanic Plaza allowing for interconnectivity between buildings. The local operations team saw an opportunity to connect these buildings for the wellbeing of our customers and local community. The crosswalk offers a direct connection between Guinness Tower and Oceanic Plaza, allowing customers to safely cross West Hastings Street when travelling between buildings. By adding the crosswalk, Oxford Place has a vastly increased sense of connectivity to the city fabric.
3. Focus on Building Community – Oxford Place was proud to launch an enhanced complex for our customers. During the official launch of Oxford Place, the complex put in new outdoor ping pong tables for customers to use, as well as a table within the Oxford Playground in MNP Tower. Customers were given personalized paddles and balls to get them excited about this new amenity while fostering positive competition and activity in this new space.

Getting Healthy with Our Customers

Kingsway Mall
Our customers were invited for a four-week regime of total body conditioning free of charge every Sunday in February. As an added incentive, customers were rewarded for attending all four sessions with a Kingsway gift card. This event was a huge success, not only for increasing traffic, but also for being recognized as a business that promotes health.

Dix30
We were approached by our tenant lululemon to see if it would be possible to transform our underground heated parking lot into a track so their run club and members of the community could escape from the harsh winter cold and run indoors. We were thrilled at the idea of repurposing the parking level for such a beneficial activity. Working with the tenant, security and operations, we were able to safely find a time (Sunday mornings at 7 am) when employees and shoppers would not be impacted. This past Sunday, we had our first event and it was a hit! We had over 80 runners participate and run around the 600 metre "track" while listening to 2016's top musical hits. They were thrilled not to be running in the -20 degree weather outside that morning. The response from participants was overwhelmingly positive as was the response on social media when we posted the images and videos.

Southcentre Mall
As part of Southcentre's Fit Fab Feb program, we are offering healthy cooking classes to our shoppers in our Inner Circle. Shoppers on our mailing list were invited to learn hands-on how to prepare fresh and healthy meals every Thursday evening. Classes included how to make fresh tortillas and salsa, salad rolls and dipping sauce, sushi and healthy grain salads. To participate in this event we suggested a $10 donation to Brown Bagging for Calgary's Kids.

Every school day, the Brown Bagging for Calgary's Kids community delivers 3,200 lunches to kids in Calgary who would otherwise go without. The number of kids in need of a lunch this year has risen from the 2,500 a day in September 2015. 100% of the funding comes from the community.

Our classes filled up within a day of posting and have been a huge hit with our shoppers. We also raised $1,000 which equals 1,000 lunches for kids in our community.

Engaging Our Boston Customers in Sustainability

In 2015, Oxford launched a tenant engagement program across its Boston office portfolio. With a four-year track record in Canada, the tenant engagement program has clear goals: align with customers’ corporate social responsibility mandates, focus on energy performance and operational efficiency, and help individuals do their part in the buildings where they work.

The Boston office portfolio got off to a great start by establishing a joint landlord-customer green team. Consisting of about 20 members and with over 50% participation (based on tenant square footage), the green team provides a space for tenants to collaborate on dynamic environmental campaigns, share best practices, and design initiatives that are relevant, innovative, and have an impact on both comfort and energy efficiency.

Throughout the year, the Boston green team incorporated actions and communications around recycling practices, reducing after-hours energy use, and promoting alternative commuting options. Oxford Recycles, a notable event, educates customers about what items go where in their building’s waste program in an effort to increase waste diversion. Participants from across the Boston portfolio played an interactive drag and drop game that mimicked their building’s program. Across the properties, more than 1,000 people played the game in their lobbies and online. And this was just the first event!

Changing occupant behaviour in office buildings plays a major role in reducing energy, saving on utility costs, diverting waste, and making for a healthier work environment. Kudos to the Oxford team in Boston for encouraging dialogue with valued customers and making our buildings better.

Joint Customer-Landlord Green Teams

With tenant energy use representing an estimated one-third of a typical office building’s operations, it is important to engage in healthy dialogue around what tenants can do to help reduce energy consumption and costs. As a starting point in 2012, Oxford launched joint landlord-tenant green teams across its office portfolio. Green teams meet quarterly to focus on sustainability goals, best practices and challenges aimed at creating more sustainable workplaces. Green teams also align Oxford’s efforts with customers’ objectives and sustainability priorities.

Today, all of our directly managed office towers have formed their own customer-landlord green teams, representing hundreds of customers operating in 44 office buildings across Canada and the US. We have achieved an average 70% customer participation rate at green team meetings across the portfolio and an overall 89% customer satisfaction rating from members.

Meetings include discussions around energy benchmarking, management and reduction, materials and waste diversion, procurement, indoor environmental quality, comfort and wellness, and how all these factors relate to our greater community, buildings and individuals within.

The program engages organizations and their employees in meaningful initiatives that seek to align sustainable actions with business and operating objectives. An example of this is the highly popular Oxford Recycles program and game where properties work with customers to evolve their waste program through proper education and awareness, customized signage tailored to individual customer needs and spaces, a robust organics recycling program, and the introduction of various waste-specific programs such as paper towel and coffee capsule recycling. Office properties across Canada have increased their waste diversion rate from an average of 60% in 2012 to 70% in 2015 due to ongoing discourse and combined efforts.

Our goal is to build strategies with our green team members that create more sustainable workplaces. Together, we can reduce energy use, increase waste diversion, procure responsibly, and promote sustainability and wellness for our buildings and the people in them.

State-of-the-Art Bike Facility in Edmonton

After two years of planning and many requests from our tenants, Oxford's Edmonton City Centre launched the Oxford Cycle Centre in the fall of 2015.

This energy efficient, brightly lit indoor facility available to tenants in Oxford Tower, TD Tower and Edmonton City Centre Mall hits all the marks on wellness, sustainability and security. While in the planning stages, we asked our tenants, “How can we make this more than just cages for bikes?” They responded with a wish list including: shower facilities with towel service, lockers, complimentary hair dryers, curling irons, and toiletries. We took it a step further and added a wash station for bikes, a bike repair and tool station, and benches for changing shoes or wet weather gear.

As downtown Edmonton continues to grow and develop with more office and retail tenants, it is important to provide up-to-date, industry-leading amenities. This tenant-only bike storage facility is the newest addition to Edmonton City Centre. Office and retail tenants alike can enjoy card reader access, bike racks, showers, towels, lockers, a bike wash station, a water bottle fill-up, and a repair station. With room for 65 bikes, the space is equipped with bright green racks and a special pebbled floor that makes it easier to walk on in cycling shoes.

Edmonton Team Lends a Helping Hand

On May 1, 2016, a wildfire began southwest of Fort McMurray, Alberta. By May 3, it swept through the community, forcing the largest wildfire evacuation in Alberta's history, displacing 88,000 people. Recognizing the sheer volume of evacuees that would require accommodations and supplies, Kingsway Mall reached out to the City of Edmonton to offer assistance. Within days, Kingsway reopened the doors to its vacant Target space to house the operations of the Edmonton Emergency Relief Services. This became the only location in the city to distribute basic supplies to evacuees from the Alberta fires. After a week of operation, with the help of over 4,000 volunteers, almost 31,000 people received supplies from what was once vacant space. Not only did the Kingsway team assist in the operations and communications of the space (65,000 square feet stocked and open in less than two days), they volunteered their own time and continued to keep the mall running in a first-class fashion. In the mall, they handed out hundreds of tote bags filled with water, gift cards, coupons and a daily list of retailers offering evacuee discounts. Kids received bags with puzzles, games and juice boxes, and pet-sitting services were also made available. Care packages were delivered to the local hospital for evacuee moms who just gave birth.

On May 27, after three weeks in operation, the Kingsway donation distribution centre invited evacuees to return for a second time. Knowing the demand would be high, Kingsway coordinated an Edmonton Oxford volunteer day with its City Centre teammates. Expanding our efforts across the country, we donated service fees from gift card sales for the month to help those in need. The result was over $25,000 donated to the Red Cross.

At the end of what was a three-month operation, Kingsway Mall assisted almost 75,000 evacuees with the help of 8,500 volunteers through the distribution centre. Total response efforts equated to a value of $185,000 in donated space, resources and man hours. Kingsway Mall was recognized by ICSC Foundation with the Canadian Community Support Award for its efforts.

2016 NXT City Prize

The 2016 NXT City Prize, presented for the second year in a row by Oxford, awards people under 35 for their big ideas to help inspire, create and activate Toronto’s public spaces. It also provides a platform to connect these young leaders with city builders to help bring these activations to life. Approximately 100 submissions were received and on November 25th, the winners were announced at the NXT City Night after-party, at District28 in Toronto's east end. The party featured interactive art installations, local eats from Toronto’s hottest kitchens and the opportunity to mingle with like-minded young leaders.

This year’s top prize of $5,000 was awarded to Andrew Patterson and Lucas DeClavasio for Toronto Streetcar Safety Murals, which proposes to use colourful artwork painted on the road space between sidewalk stops and streetcars to help keep exiting passengers safe. Judges were impressed by the simplicity and cost effectiveness of the idea and the role it could play improving the safety of pedestrians and transit users. Honourable mentions went to Urban Chats for their real-time speech translation stations and Double Exposure for their app that would bring history back to life through the use of augmented reality. Oxford is proud to partner again with NXT City, and help support tomorrow’s city builders, customers and partners.

Meanwhile, Oxford is making its own waves in connecting office workers to public space. Whether it’s our recent extension of the PATH to Toronto’s waterfront, or connecting the occupants of our office buildings to surrounding public spaces through health and wellness events, we too are helping to create what’s NXT for Toronto.

Experiencing New Cultures through Oxford’s Volunteer Sponsorship Program

Through Oxford’s Volunteer Sponsorship Program, Preeti Varma, Manager, Learning Solutions, had the opportunity to travel to Africa with the hope of changing the lives of others. What she didn’t expect was how the experience would change her.

Preeti travelled to the Maasai Mara in Kenya, as part of Me to We’s “Adopt a Village” Development Program. She had the opportunity to work alongside community members, leaders and learners from the tribe to understand their challenges and to be a part of the long-term sustainable solutions that are being implemented to empower entire communities to break out of the cycle of poverty.

Preeti’s initial thoughts upon landing were quickly replaced by a deep realization of the power of community: “In the Maasai community, there is no individualism. The entire community is a supportive unit – they share what they have, so they have what they need. They are profoundly grateful for the things we often take for granted – rain for their crops, education for young girls, and being able to listen to the US election on the radio, despite having to walk 8 kilometres to the nearest one. The Maasai are a testament to the human capacity for resilience. Hard work is a way of life there, and I experienced the satisfaction and thrill of helping build a school with my own hands.”

“I am so lucky to work for an organization that cares so deeply about others and believes in taking action to impact change,” says Preeti. “In representing Oxford on my volunteer sponsorship opportunity, I continued to develop as a community leader and an ambassador for Oxford in our global community.”

Youthdale Initiative

In October 2014, an initiative involving all Oxford’s greater Toronto area shopping centres was created to raise funds for the not-for-profit group, Youthdale Treatment Centre. The Youthdale Treatment Centre is a non-profit, charitable community agency that supports youth from the ages of 12 to 18 by offering outpatient consultations, residential treatment and psychiatric crisis response. Oxford’s shopping centres donated “new” items that had been turned in to lost and found and never picked up between October and December 2014. While collecting these items, representatives of the Youthdale team were blown away by the overwhelming positive feelings of goodwill received from each of the shopping centres. This initiative generated over $11,000 in value to be auctioned off to raise funds for Youthdale.

In 2016, all of Oxford’s shopping centres in Ontario, Hillcrest Mall, Scarborough Town Centre, Yorkdale Shopping Centre, Square One Shopping Centre, and Upper Canada Mall, were involved in the Youthdale Lost and Found initiative. Overall, this initiative generated a total collection of donated items worth over $22,000 in value, doubling the amount collected in 2014. These items were used by the Youthdale team in making gift baskets for a silent auction. These funds helped create even more services for the Youthdale community, enabling them to continue offering mental health services for children and their families, and created opportunities to send these youth to camp.

Elevated Eats at Yorkdale

In the summer 2016, Yorkdale Shopping Centre built an outdoor rooftop urban farm, aptly named Elevated Eats, utilizing parking spaces at its on-site office tower. The goal of Elevated Eats was to enhance food education and food choices for everyone. The urban farm set out to donate all grown food to local food banks, and create a space to serve as an educational playground for the area youth.

To celebrate the launch, City TV’s Frank “Frankie Flowers” Ferragine was on hand, assisting the team with planting and education. Throughout the summer, Frankie and 10 volunteers tended to the garden.

The educational component consisted of 10 lesson plans for grades 1–3 based on the Ontario Curriculum. Various lessons looked at nutrient recycling, types of bags in the garden, hands-on gardening skills, pollination, healthy soils, plant anatomy and more.

During the first harvest in June, Elevated Eats was able to fill five crates with leaf and butter crunch lettuce. Over the course of the growing season, the garden produced more than 30 varieties of seasonal vegetables and fruits including green beans, swiss chard, cucumbers, eggplant, kale, lettuce and tomatoes. Staff located in the office tower also were able to enjoy the space and would make time to take their lunch outside.

Looking forward, the crates that contain the plots can eventually be relocated to a larger growing area at Yorkdale. All vegetables grown from the garden were donated to the Daily Bread Food Bank.

Elevated Eats would not have been possible without the support of Frankie Flowers, Bradford Greenhouses, Garden Gallery, Scotts Miracle-Gro Canada, Southwest Greens, IFCO, and Bonnie Plants.

Hoarding for Humanity Puts Waste to Good Use

At one time, temporary construction enclosures made of drywall (also known as hoarding) created a lot of waste at our shopping centres. Used to enclose storefronts undergoing renovations, the drywall was not typically re-used after its short useful life. To remedy the problem, Oxford became a leading partner of Hoarding for Humanity. Partnered with Habitat for Humanity Canada, Hoarding for Humanity puts hoarding to use in charitable community building projects.

Oxford has more participating properties and has donated more hoarding than anyone else in the program. To date, Scarborough Town Centre, Square One, Hillcrest Mall, Upper Canada Mall and Oxford Urban Properties have donated more than 113,000 square feet of hoarding. Laid end-to-end, these drywall sheets would reach the height of 16 CN Towers! That's a lot of waste diverted from landfill, and a win-win for all involved.