LEED Leadership
in Toronto
What do you get when you combine a world class developer (Oxford) with a world class pension fund
(OMERS) that owns that same developer on an office building project? Exquisite design and double LEED
certification.
EY Tower in Toronto achieved LEED® Core & Shell Platinum certification (for construction of the
building), and OMERS & Oxford’s head offices within the building achieved LEED® for Commercial
Interiors Gold certification (for design
and construction of their space).
The project brought Oxford’s commitment of connecting people to exceptional places to life. EY Tower
offers best in class customer comfort, striking architecture, and industry leading smart
sustainability practices – such as
ultra-high efficiency central boiler plant, Enwave Deep Lake Cooling, full building LED lighting,
daylight and motion sensors, solar shading through exterior fins, and real-time air quality
monitoring.
The building also offers occupants leading wellbeing features, including: shared indoor/outdoor
spaces, wellness rooms, automatic sit-stand desks, diverse working areas, complimentary healthy food
in kitchenettes, bike lockers,
shower facilities, and accessible stairwells with motivational murals to encourage use.
LED Conversions
Driving Savings
Oxford’s Hotels team set their sights on reducing energy consumption through LED retrofits – and the
results are impressive.
The InterContinental Hotel, located in downtown Toronto, completed its conversion to 100% LED
lighting by January 2019. The five year project started with converting meeting rooms and the lobby,
with the back of house area and
guest rooms following after. This drove a 20% reduction in electricity and $270,000 in annual cost
savings.
Oxford’s Rocky Mountain Resort Hotels - including Chateau Whistler, Chateau Lake Louise, Jasper Park
Lodge and the Banff Springs – are on track to be 100% LED by year-end 2019 while receiving over
$145,000 in incentives.
Through the projects, over 53,000 bulbs have been installed.
Continual
Learning for the Climate
Oxford is committed to doing its part to address climate change.
Setting an ambitious carbon reduction target (30% reduction by 2025, relative to a 2015 base year),
is an important first step. Following that up with coordinated and impactful action across our global
portfolio is a larger
challenge.
That’s why it is so important that we invest in training and development of our people on this
important – albeit still relatively new – topic.
Oxford’s corporate energy leaders developed and executed a Target 2025 Workshop in 2018 for a broad
range of our office and retail site teams. The focus was on expanding our thinking beyond energy
conservation into carbon
reduction. The workshops were enthusiastically received and produced the tangible output of a Carbon
Reduction Action Plans for each building team.
These workshops continue into 2020 as we double down on achieving our target.
Community Solar
Leadership
How do you achieve a triple win through rooftop solar projects?
In collaboration with our partner New Community Solar, Oxford is completing the development of a 163
kW, 10,000 square foot rooftop solar project across two buildings in Washington DC – 1101 New York Ave
(office building) and
Gallery Place (a mixed use office/retail building).
So how does it work, and who wins?
The project takes advantage of regulation in Washington that allows an entity to generate renewable
electricity and allocate (or donate) the benefits of that electricity to others. So the first win is
for the 30 low income families
in Washington DC that Oxford is donating the electricity to (the utility will reduce the electricity
bills of these families to match the amount generated on our rooftop).
The second win is for the environment, as the project will inject 190,000 kW of clean electricity
into the grid each year. And the third win is for Oxford – our people are proud to support a cleaner
grid and our local communities
through this innovative project.
Enabling Low
Emissions Transportation
Bloomberg predicts that electric vehicles will be cost competitive with traditional gas vehicles by
2025 and represent >50% of vehicles on the road by 2040.
The shift to electric vehicles introduces a lot of questions for a large real estate portfolio like
Oxford. How many of our customers will drive electric vehicles in the future? How critical is it for
customers to charge their cars
at different types of real estate assets? (eg. office, retail, residential). What can we do to provide
an outstanding customer experience? Where else will electric vehicle charging stations be available
and what will their approach
be?
Oxford currently has over 100 electric vehicle charging stations across our portfolio. We have taken
action to provide this customer amenity and they are over 90% utilized on a daily basis. The questions
above are the ones we are
focused on – to ensure we make smart investments and keep ahead in this challenging space.
The Sun Shines
at Yorkdale – Year 1 Update
When the sun shines, the meter rolls at Yorkdale!
In the summer of 2017, Oxford successfully installed 600 electricity generating solar panels on the
east expansion rooftop of Yorkdale Shopping Centre – on time and on budget. The rooftop solar panels
covered approximately 20,000
square feet – and would produce equivalent to three months of interior and exterior lighting at
Yorkdale.
So how are we doing, a little over one year later?
The project has performed admirably – it has generated 110% of modelled performance and offset
$45,000 in energy costs at the building. And it has been a very low maintenance endeavor, with only
one minor technical issue to date
that was quickly fixed by our support team.
This successful project has driven learnings across Oxford and contributed to more ambitious plans
– the future is bright for solar at Oxford!