The Toronto office building portfolio of Oxford Properties Group has seen an 11 percent drop in energy consumption since 2010, a target reached almost two years ahead of schedule.
Oxford achieved this energy reduction as a participant in the Toronto’s Race to Reduce initiative sponsored by Civic Action, which launched nearly two years ago and challenged participants to cut their energy use by 10 percent by 2014 – relative to a 2010 base year.
Major actions taken by Oxford include: investing in more efficient equipment, installing real-time electricity sub-meters to better manage key base building systems (lighting, heating, cooling), continually improving building management practices, working with tenants to create green teams and building wide campaigns, and highlighting real-time energy usage on digital screens to drive awareness and encourage energy reduction.
Participating buildings include:
- Royal Bank Plaza
- TD Canada Trust Tower
- Metro Centre
- One University/Citigroup Place
- Richmond-Adelaide Centre (pictured)
- Dundee Place
- 2 Bloor Street West
- Sun Life Financial Centre
- 315 Front Street
- WaterPark Place
About 500 companies in Oxford’s 17 Toronto office buildings are actively participating with Oxford in the Race to Reduce challenge. Participation in Race to Reduce is part of Oxford’s Sustainable Intelligence program, a formalized initiative to manage and communicate sustainability performance to stakeholders and employees. Sustainable Intelligence describes every facet of Oxford’s approach?from identifying opportunities and establishing goals, to implementing plans and measuring performance.
At a Race to Reduce awards event in December 2012, Civic Action recognized Brookfield Office Properties and Crown Property Management buildings as the lowest energy users in the Toronto region’s commercial real estate sector – of those buildings participating in the program.
