LEED Certified

One Queen East & 20 Richmond Street East is part of an exclusive group of LEED EB:O&M Gold Certified Buildings in Canada. As of January 2015, only 54 buildings had achieved this prestigious certification in Ontario.

 

“Big Wins” from LEED EB Certification

  • Saving 216 tonnes CO2e of annual GHG Emissions anticipated due to energy efficiency improvements, equivalent to taking 45 vehicles off the road for a year, or 20 residential homes’ electricity for a year.
  • Retro-commissioning investigation identified opportunities to achieve 8% annual energy savings (1,440,000 ekWh/yr) with an average payback of 3.7 years. 
  • 78% of waste produced at One Queen & 20 Richmond Street East is diverted reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill.
  • Seven New Sustainable Operations Policies instituted. One Queen & 20 Richmond Street East policies are best in class for sustainability.
  • 4,180,000 L less potable water consumed annually compared to a typical office building as benchmarked by LEED-EB. We upgraded 108 lavatory faucets and 27 urinals to lower flow models to significantly reduce our water use.
  • Over 90% of occupants use alternative forms of transportation, such as public transit, carpooling, bicycling and walking.

 

Strategies implemented to achieve the “Big Wins” include:

 

Sustainable Sites

  • We reduce the environmental impact of building exterior and hardscape management by using:Hand-powered equipment for snow removal and landscaping activities
  • Environmentally-friendly ice melting agents in lieu of salt in the winter, and only using these sparingly
  • Green Seal certified cleaning agents
  • 100% of parking is underground, eliminating the heat island effect that would be generated by above-grade parking
  • Non-emergency interior lighting turns off automatically after hours, and exterior lighting is only under the canopy, preventing light pollution beyond the site 

 

Water Efficiency

  • Replacing plumbing fixtures with lower flow models resulting in the complex consuming a calculated 30% less water than the LEED baseline amount
  • To increase the water efficiency of the cooling tower system, a chemical management system mitigates corrosion, scaling, sedimentation and biological growth

 

Energy and Atmosphere

  • With an Energy Star score of 73, One Queen Street East & 20 Richmond Street East’s energy performance is 23% better than the median commercial office building
  • The complex was retro-commissioned to identify measures to improve energy performance, the measures were implemented, and system performance continues to be optimized through ongoing commissioning
  • Only R-123 is used in the chillers, reducing our impact on the ozone layer

 

Materials and Resources

  • Policies are in place to purchase materials with lower environmental impact, and to divert waste from landfill
  • On average, our light bulbs contain less than 90 picograms/lumen-hour of mercury, and we recycle spent bulbs, preventing mercury from contaminating the environment
  • We divert more than 70% of our waste from landfill
  • Our tenants use our e-waste recycling program to divert all e-waste from landfill

 

Indoor Environmental Quality

  • The ventilation systems were rebalanced to ensure optimal volumes of outdoor air are supplied
  • High efficiency (MERV 13) filters help maintain a high level of indoor air quality
  • Our sustainable cleaning program calls for the use of janitorial products with recycled content and cleaning chemicals approved by EcoLogo or Green Seal

 

LEED - Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is a system for rating and recognizing high health, energy and environmental performance in buildings. In Canada, LEED certifications are managed by the Canadian Green Building Council (CaGBC), with the intent of the program to define, measure and verify the sustainability of buildings. The LEED program was originally developed in the late 1990’s with a focus on new construction and large-scale renovations. Since then, it has continued to evolve as technology and understanding has improved.  There are currently a wide variety of LEED rating systems available through the CaGBC for different project types, including LEED for New Construction (NC), LEED for Homes, LEED for Commercial Interiors (CI), LEED Application Guide for Core and Shell (CS) and LEED for Existing Buildings (EB).  

 

The LEED Canada for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance rating system (LEED EB:O&M) helps building owners and operators measure operations, improvements and maintenance on a consistent scale, with the goal of maximizing operational efficiency while minimizing environmental impacts. LEED for Existing Buildings addresses ongoing operational and maintenance issues including whole-building cleaning, recycling programs, exterior maintenance programs, systems metering, and systems upgrades.