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The decision that companies make to reside in buildings with the highest environmental standard is often romanticized as the pursuit of the idealist CEO or an altruistic awakening. But Canada’s leading businesses simply see the built environment differently. Within the bricks and mortar of Canada’s most sustainably built and operated workspaces, companies are discovering more than environmental benefits: they are tapping into real business value.

Corporate leaders in Canada are increasingly tuning into the business value of choosing sustainable real estate. Five Canadian businesses who are leading the way, share their perspective on the return on investment that comes from choosing to operate in sustainable buildings.

Courtesy Sun Life

Sun Life Financial, financial services

Sun Life recently moved its corporate headquarters into One York Street in Toronto’s south core financial district. With Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification, the 35-storey office tower was built using 100-per-cent sustainably sourced wood, and 88 per cent of construction waste was returned for manufacturing reuse, not sent to a landfill. Two cisterns collect rainwater, which will be turned into more than 5-million litres of potable water every year, and solar panels produce more than 86,000 kilowatts annually.

“But it’s not just about a building that cuts energy costs,” says Melissa Kennedy, Sun Life’s Chief Legal Officer. “Sustainability is also how employees work. We did an audit and found that a huge percentage of the lawyers were not often physically in their offices; they’d be in court or at meetings.” Instead of heating and lighting closed offices, Sun Life moved its legal team into open workspaces, with huddle rooms for collaborating or confidential discussions. “It significantly reduces the carbon footprint, and the literal footprint: If everyone had an office, we wouldn’t fit into the space.”

Ms. Kennedy says sustainability has another upside beyond cutting the hydro bill: attracting clients and recruiting talent. “We survey our clients, and I hear it during job interviews: People want to work with a company that views sustainability matters as important.”

Four Seasons, hotel group

The Four Seasons Hotel Toronto implemented its Smart Building program in 2013, enabling consistent monitoring of its heating, cooling, ventilation and lighting systems. “Utilities are a major expense for any business and there are great environmental and financial benefits that come from reducing energy use,” says Jiri Samal, the hotel’s Director of Engineering. Over the past four years, the 55-storey Yorkville hotel has saved almost 8.5 million kilowatt hours of electricity and more than 900,000 cubic metres of natural gas. Mr. Samal likens the savings to 7,541 tons of carbon dioxide, 848,000 gallons of gasoline, 17,535 barrels of oil, and driving 1,587 Honda Civics for 17.9 million kilometers. “Our system also helps to prolong the lifetime of the equipment, saving costs down the line,” he says. “Operators can also spend more time maintaining rather than repairing the equipment. Furthermore, running the building smartly has a direct impact on our overall carbon footprint.”

A view of the staircases at the MEC headquarters in Vancouver. (Courtesy MEC)

Mountain Equipment Co-op, retailer

It’s no surprise that a company built on a love for the great outdoors takes a sustainable approach to indoors too. In 2010, Mountain Equipment Co-op launched its Green Building Systems initiative across its 22 stores. Four of its stores and its Montreal office now have LEED Gold ratings, and its Ottawa and Winnipeg stores were the country’s first to meet Natural Resources Canada’s C2000 Green Building Standard of cutting energy consumption to half that of conventional buildings. The company’s four-storey headquarters in East Vancouver is a LEED Platinum-certified building that draws heat from underground geothermal wells and uses sunlight sensors to control window blinds and light fixtures. Despite being larger than MEC’s previous HQ, and housing 60-per-cent more employees, the office’s energy cost per square-foot decreased by nearly 28 per cent.

But Sandy Treagus, MEC’s chief financial officer, says sustainability’s ROI is about more than the numbers. “There’s building performance, which you can measure financial ROI, and there’s having a high-performing building in terms of what the employees and people occupying the building get out of it,” he says. “At the end of the day, occupancy is the real test. These are the less tangible, but important, benefits: employee wellness, number of sick days and the like.”

An in-house survey found that 82 per cent of the HQ’s 300 employees would recommend working at MEC. Features such as abundant natural light, on-site exercise facilities and lunchtime fitness classes, bicycle parking and a bouldering cave, says Mr. Treagus, “all contribute to wellness, and that contributes to business sustainability because it increases our ability to attract and retain great staff. We have people coming into the building for interviews who say, ‘Wow, I’d love to work here.’ The building can be a real selling point when we’re trying to land a prospective employee.”

A view of the University of Calgary’s Child Development Centre. (Courtesy University of Calgary)

Aecon Group Inc. construction

By some estimates, waste generated by construction and demolition accounts for 27 per cent of the solid waste in landfills – yet three-quarters of that “waste” has residual value (through reuse or salvage) or is recyclable. “Diverting waste from the landfill saves time and money and is one of the leading megatrends for creating operational efficiencies,” says John M. Beck, President and CEO of Aecon Group Inc., one of Canada’s largest construction and infrastructure development companies. Aecon’s projects include the University of Calgary’s Child Development Centre – the highest scoring LEED Platinum building in Canada – and the Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre, Canada’s first LEED Gold hospital.

The sustainable mindset, and the resulting operational efficiencies, extends to Aecon’s HQ in Toronto’s Pearson Corporate Centre. The 100,000 square-feet offices feature LED lighting, occupancy sensors, lighting control timers, chemical-free green cleaning products, a timer-based HVAC system, a smart irrigation system that reduces operational water consumption, organic waste collection, and a monitoring system that tracks overall energy savings initiatives. “Energy conservation reduces operating costs as seen not only on the bottom-line, but in contributing towards a green future,” says Mr. Beck. “Operating our corporate activities in a building that fosters like-minded values of environmental responsibility is also extremely important in ensuring those values are upheld at each and every job site. This consistency strengthens our culture and drives business benefits.”

Diamond Schmitt, architects

About 14 years ago, the brain trust at Diamond Schmitt Architects began to ponder the firm’s role in the planet’s wellbeing. Buildings represent more than half of North American energy consumption; the majority of that energy goes to operations – such as lighting, heating and cooling – with the balance being the energy needed to produce concrete, steel and other building materials. “It started with the sense that we as architects, and the building industry, were part of the problem,” says one of the firm’s principal architects, Donald Schmitt. “Then it morphed into wanting to do things better, with tangible outcomes, and wanting to be ahead of the curve.”

Taking action, the firm pioneered the use of bio-filter walls, which use plants to improve air quality, and was an early adopter of geo-exchange and grey-water recycling technologies. It’s even designed two net-energy-zero buildings: Okanagan College’s Trades Training Complex in Kelowna, and Sifton Properties’ mixed-use head office in London, Ont. Sustainably designed and constructed buildings not only save their clients money from lower operational costs, says Mr. Schmitt, but are easier to populate with tenants.

Square footage, location and character are no longer enough to fill leases: “Now a minimum LEED Gold standard is a central part of marketing office space,” Mr. Schmitt says. “You find in the centre of Toronto, for example, the major office towers went through retrofits of their buildings. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get older buildings certified, because it matters to companies who want a healthier environment for their employees – and their employees are demanding it. People are attracted to companies that know how to manage that.”


This content was produced by The Globe and Mail's Globe Edge Content Studio in consultation with an advertiser. The Globe's editorial department was not involved in its creation.