Thank you very much for having us. My name is Hazel Sutton. I am the manager of environmental standards. With me is Victoria Papp, program coordinator for environmental standards for BOMA.
We are with BOMA Canada, the Building Owners and Managers Association of Canada. It is a not-for-profit organization representing the Canadian commercial real estate industry on matters of national concern. We have over 3,100 members, representing 2.1 billion square feet of commercial real estate across the country.
Our members are building owners, managers, building operators, facility managers, leasing agents, brokers, investors and service providers. We have 11 local associations throughout the country, including one in Ottawa, BOMA Ottawa. You might be familiar with it. So we are very well represented across the country.
Part of what I wanted to speak about today is our program BOMA BEST, which some of you might already be familiar with. We've had a lot of participation from the federal government in this program. It is Canada's leading certification program for green buildings, for existing buildings. We have over 7,200 certifications or recertifications that have been obtained since the beginning of the program, back in 2005. We currently have over 28 certified buildings in Canada. We have also just recently certified a building in Mexico. We're very proud of that. We also have some certifications in the U.S., as well as some interest in China. We're very excited that this made-in-Canada program is being slowly adopted across the world.
It is a unique and voluntary program, designed by industry for industry, specifically recognizing the excellence in energy and environmental management and performance in commercial real estate. It is managed by us here at BOMA Canada, and it is delivered and administered by our 11 local associations across the country. The program consists of a framework that provides a holistic environmental assessment of the building's operations and management programs across 10 key areas. You'll recognize some of these areas as the areas of focus for us today. We look at energy, water, air, comfort, health and wellness, custodial, procurement, waste, site and stakeholder engagement. It is a questionnaire consisting of about 180 questions. Five levels of certification can be achieved, and it is literally open to every building type that exists.
Every certification is verified by a third party verifier to make sure that the integrity of the program is maintained. We pride ourselves on this program, that it is providing our buildings with a building management program. We understand that energy and maintenance represent 50% or more of operating expenses, and this is a huge opportunity for people to understand exactly where improvements can be made within their building operating systems at low to no cost, or with some costs should they wish to have some larger retrofits. The program is specifically tied to increasing building performance, as well as increasing the capacity of building operators and managers to further understand where opportunities lie within their buildings and to become more familiar with the operations.
The program specifically asks our users to understand how their building operates. First, we ask them to identify their intent specifically and, for each of the categories, the objective they're trying to reach in a particular category. For example, in the energy category, it might be energy conservation, energy reduction. Then we ask them to perform an assessment, to benchmark their performance at that moment, to understand exactly how they're performing. That would be an energy audit, for example, and then we recommend, through our subsequent sections, which management programs, policies and plans they might want to put in place to further improve their operations, as well as the kinds of technologies they might want to put in place. Mr. Wayland described quite a few of them, and we wholeheartedly support the technologies he described.
The program also provides a platform for monitoring carbon intensity, which is obviously a very important component in understanding how we can further reduce the impact of our buildings.
Ultimately, the program does assist our building managers to save money. We're really happy to see that, because as they reduce their energy consumption, they will be saving on operating costs, as well as reducing their GHG emissions, and we do know that recertification is associated with improved performance. We have a few different studies of certified and non-certified buildings that have been performed, and they are finding quite a lot of improvement at recertification: for example, a 25% reduction in energy consumption, a 30% reduction in water consumption and an 8% increase in diverted waste, waste which does not end up in a landfill. There are also some studies on occupancy rates. We know that there's higher occupancy satisfaction and higher tenant satisfaction. Higher rental rates can be commended for those spaces.
We are eager to work with the federal government to reduce the impact of buildings on our environment and on the climate. To that effect, 150 federal buildings have been put through the program just recently. They've just registered thanks to BGIS, the building management company that is working with the federal government on this particular portfolio. We're very happy to have those buildings with us in the program. This will help provide the government with real data to understand exactly how the buildings are performing and where opportunities lie to increase and improve that performance.
What I'd like to also speak about is the topic of resilience. This is one area of focus that was mentioned, and this is an area that we have just recently added to our assessment. We are asking our building owners and managers to let us know to what extent they're performing short-term and long-term risk assessments, and then acting on the results of those risk assessments and planning for what may occur. We understand that buildings are vulnerable to the impacts of short-term and long-term extreme climate change—risks such as flooding—and so part of what we're looking for through resilience is the ability to prepare and plan for adverse extreme weather events, absorb and recover from them successfully, and then evolve to an improved state. Ultimately, we want these buildings to maintain their function in the face of shocks and stressors imposed by climate change, while also creating lasting value.
What we've done, specifically what my colleague Victoria Papp has done, is work directly on this resilience brief, which I'm happy to share with you. It's free for anyone to download from our website. We can send you the link. It is a 10-page document that summarizes what resilience means, what we are looking for, where the risks might lie—for example, flooding or wildfires—and what buildings may want to do and consider to start preparing themselves against these risks and make sure that they can continue to function in the face of adverse climate change.
I'll give you a few examples that we're looking at specifically: stormwater capture systems and whether those are installed on buildings to funnel the stormwater that may be coming; the installation of green roofs and walls to further absorb water; crisis management programs; flood mapping, whether you know where your buildings are located and what they will be susceptible to in the future; and increasing tree planting and/or the creation of green spaces.
Finally, what I'd like to share with you is that BOMA Canada is working with a very wide group of stakeholders on a resilience assessment protocol. It is in draft format right now. We've been working on it for a few years. It provides building managers with a list of the areas of concern to business continuity and resilience that they'll want to focus on to make sure they're able to continue functioning. We are looking at the construction features, at the heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment, and at the electrical transformers and switch gear, specifically where those are located. Are they going to be able to withstand flooding, for example? If they're on the ground floor, they might not.
Is there a good communication system in place to be able to communicate to the building tenants and to any other stakeholders what is happening? Where is the backup power? How does that work? For example, are the elevators programmed not to go all the way to the bottom floor if it is flooded? Do you know where your building documentation is? Is it susceptible to being lost? In terms of your waste disposal and collection locations—for example, if you have some hazardous waste—do we know that the waste won't get caught up in some flood water? To continue with the example of flooding, in terms of the building condition and envelope—again, this is obviously very important—are you susceptible to leaks and some water damage that way?
Really, it's just an overall flooding and stormwater management program. It's a checklist. It's an assessment. It provides guidance and a framework for building managers to start understanding where the risks lie for them and to start being able to act on this. Again, this is in draft format. We're very excited to be working on it. We're always looking for additional feedback.
That concludes my statement today. Thank you.