AeroCentre, Richmond Adelaide Centre Tops in Race to Reduce

HOOPP Realty’s AeroCentre 1 (5600 Explorer Dr) and Oxford Properties Group’s Richmond Adelaide Centre (above) have been crowned energy reduction champions in CivicAction's Race to Reduce, the top office towers among 21 buildings that reduced energy use by more than 20% over the four years of the race, 2011 to 2014. AeroCentre, managed by Menkes Property Management Services, cut energy use by 39%, and Richmond Adelaide Centre chopped its usage by 35%. None could touch the City of Toronto’s Toronto Archive Centre, which achieved an insane 59% reduction in energy use over four years.

RBC swept the Team Excellence awards, which celebrate active and sustained landlord-tenant collaboration, along with its landlords, Bentall Kennedy, Oxford Properties and Cadillac Fairview, whose 41-storey RBC Centre (above) was cited for energy savings of 305,600 kilowatt hours as a result of reduced lighting and data room air conditioning, LED retrofits, and the implementation of daytime cleaning initiatives. The average portfolio manager Energy Star score across the 17 lowest energy use award winners was 95.5 out of 100, 37 points above the Canadian national average for commercial office buildings.

A shot from last Thursday's event. From left, with CivicAction staffers, are Race to Reduce co-chair Ian Jarvis; Ontario Environment Minister Glen Murray; TD Bank SVP/race co-chair Roger Johnson; the Austrian consulate’s Arnulf Gressel; race co-chair Brad Henderson; CivicAction CEO Sevaun Palvetzian and chair Rod Phillips; and Oxford’s Lachlan MacQuarrie, co-chair of Race to Reduce, which is celebrating a 12.1% drop in collective energy use over four years of the initiative, “charging past” its 10% target, says spokesperson Sarah Harris. “It’s equivalent to taking more than 4,200 cars off the road and putting $13.7M back into office landlords’ and tenants’ pockets.”