Government Operations committee  I'll agree. The federal government can take leadership if it so chooses. The things to do are: number one, measure your inventory and understand where you are; number two, set targets that you think they should be at. There's lot of data out there to draw from. Use some industry norms.

Government Operations committee  Just for the committee, when you lease a space from the private sector, it's the national code that will apply in your lease, not the provincial code, or the provincial code if it's higher in terms of standards. For the scope of the discussion here, it is the national code essentially that applies unless the provincial code happens to be higher.

Government Operations committee  Measure every one of your buildings in your portfolio and understand how they're performing and what they're doing, because you can't take steps to reduce if you don't know what you're using.

Government Operations committee  No one would ever turn down an opportunity to work with them, at least if there's at least one major tenant. It becomes complex when you have 10 or 15 tenants in a building, but if you have a building.... There are many like this that have one major federal government tenant, have approached the landlord, have said that they'd like to find a way to collectively reduce energy, and have asked if the landlord is open to these kinds of investments.

Government Operations committee  I won't claim to be an expert on all they things they do. They certainly have campaigns. They have posters up: turn off the lights when you leave the room; don't use water more than you have to. They certainly have that, but I wouldn't be expert in a lot of what they do. What we advocate is measuring what they do so that they can feed it back to the staff.

Government Operations committee  If I may, I don't know if I used the word “commitment” or not. It is piecemeal, but often because the delegation of authority is split between the people who run the buildings and environmental officers who are charged with the responsibility of the environmental programs. I assume they go to more than energy, but I'm speaking in terms of what I deal with.

Government Operations committee  I would say the same thing. He talks about standards; I talk about specifications. When you go and lease space, you say, “This is what my needs are”, and put in those specifications, call them standards, and use your buying power. It's well within your prerogative. That's what businesses do all the time.

Government Operations committee  You may find that the bigger challenge is in writing that specification for all government buildings all across the country, but it's not impossible. We go back to challenging federal government employees to be as knowledgeable as they can be as buyers. In that case, now they become buyers, not property managers, to be able to put those definitions in place.

Government Operations committee  The costs are all passed through, yes.

Government Operations committee  All operating costs.

Government Operations committee  Creating specifications in terms of the law, you'll find this quite challenging because everything's a little bit different across this country. Quebec has its electricity coming from a different source than Alberta does and B.C. does, so there are a lot of challenges in that. But the idea, just in general, of having specifications when it comes to lease time is just good business.

Government Operations committee  From our industry perspective there's always a business case to be made, and there will always be a dollars and cents analysis. From your perspective in your own buildings, you're going to have to throw in the extra decision of the idea of recycling a building, if you will. It's a very hard concept to get around.

Government Operations committee  I think it goes back to the statement about what they do differently in Europe. There's will in Europe; there's an attitude. People are different in their approach to how they consume everything, not only electricity but garbage, everything. The cost of energy does have a lot to do with it. it's much higher, so they have an incentive to do that.

Government Operations committee  I'm not sure what you mean in terms of opening up a lease. Change the terms of a lease? That doesn't engage the tenant.

Government Operations committee  I appreciate that concept, but when I speak to tenant engagement, I need us to get away from the idea of the person who's dealing with the lease versus the people who are physically occupying the space. It's really about behavioural change.