Griping is easy, so when the opportunity to celebrate comes along, grab it. Race to Reduce awards host Ben Mulroney says now is such a time (we keep confetti in our wallets for occasions like this), as buildings here have reduced energy use by 9%.

We were on hand at CivicAction's third annual Race to Reduce, which celebrates landlord and tenant successes in energy reduction. Over 175 buildings have registered—67M SF of office space. The folks behind the campaign (pictured are CivicAction's commercial building energy leadership council co-chairs CBRE's Brad Henderson and TD Bank's Roger Johnson) announced they are 1% away from the four-year goal of 10% by the end of 2014. (So turn off the lights and stop charging your electric toothbrush at the office.)

Commercial buildings contribute about 20% of carbon produced in the GTA, Brad tells us. Roger says the program has launched upped landlord-tenant relations at TD Centre, where it's since launched a tenant council with Cadillac Fairview. (Above, Brad and Roger with by Toronto Hydro's Joe Bile, CivicAction's Linda Weichel, Ben, and Ontario Power Authority's Andrew Pride.)

At TD Centre, above, all the major tenants and landlord Cadillac get together and share ideas on reducing energy, Roger says. (This is how book clubs get started.) CivicAction says that cutting energy consumption by at least 10% across the region means reducing energy consumption by 545 million equivalent kWh--that's equal to annual carbon emissions from more than 14,000 cars.

Whether you win or not (like the RBC team, above, which nabbed an award in the energy category), the competition will turn into best practices that can be adopted beyond 2014, Roger and Brad say. Awards were given for team excellence, energy champion, and building performance.