Apartment buildings were not prominent performers in the BOMA BESt environmental benchmarking program last year. Recently released results for the 562 buildings certified in 2014 reveal multi-unit residential buildings (MURBs) had the second lowest participation rate among six real estate asset classes. Only the new health care category, which was just launched in August 2014, registered fewer certifications.
MURB participation has declined in each year since the category was first included in BOMA BESt — from 37 buildings in 2012, to 30 buildings in 2013, to just 21 buildings in 2014. Residential landlords in Ontario are pursuing certification through other channels, however. The Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario (FRPO) tallies nearly 970 apartment buildings, encompassing about 100,000 units, registered in its Certified Rental Building (CRB) program, which now includes an environmental and energy management component known as Living Green Together.
“The environmental standards for the CRB program were tailor-made for the multi-residential sector so in terms of the relative merits of the CRB program, they are quite favourable,” says Randy Daiter, vice president, residential properties, with M&R Property Management and chair of FRPO’s CRB committee. “The requirements complement the age and the needs of the multi-residential sector.”
Many major private and non-profit housing providers have signed on to CRB since its 2008 rollout, and several — including Park Property Management, Minto, Timbercreek Asset Management, Vertica and the Regional Municipality of Peel — have either completed or are working toward Living Green Together compliance.
Risk management and brand recognition
“The institutional players are very much on board with the program,” reports Ted Whitehead, FRPO’s director of certification overseeing the CRB program. “There is a growing sense that sustainability needs to be part of the risk management culture in any organization.”
As of 2013, Living Green Together added a sixth prong to the third-party-audited CRB program, which already required participants to comply with designated management practices in the categories of: legislation/regulatory requirements; resident management; human resources; building operations; and finance. Building managers and operators from participating buildings must also complete an eight-hour training course on the program’s standards of practice. These include a range of obligations related to health and safety, privacy and human rights, customer service, preventative maintenance, record keeping, accounting procedures and labour relations.
The green living category introduces operating standards geared to energy and water consumption, waste diversion and recycling, preferred environmental purchasing and efforts to engage frontline staff and residents in conservation and improved sustainability practices. As with BOMA BESt, program participants are required to recertify their buildings at three-year intervals so all certified buildings should comply with the green standards by the end of 2016; however, Whitehead affirms he’s aiming for wide-scale voluntary take-up by later this fall.
“CRB has the brand recognition in multi-res, and I think there’s a certain amount of momentum,” observes Derek Billsman, director of strategic initiatives and sustainability with Morguard. “We recertified a number of our properties with CRB last year, in 2014. A lot of companies have properties already enrolled in CRB and therefore it may be easier to recertify with CRB, including the new green standards, than to switch to BOMA BESt.”
BOMA BESt participation rate lags
Of the 21 multi-unit residential buildings certified under BOMA BESt last year, two-thirds were at the basic Level 1, which recognizes the simple adoption of 14 designated planning, monitoring and oversight practices. In contrast, BOMA BESt Levels 2 to 4 reflect operational and management performance. Scores are derived from 175 questions in six categories — energy; water; waste reduction and site enhancement; emissions and effluents; indoor environment; and environmental management systems — and results are plotted on a scale of 100.
“Our program would be equivalent to somewhere between Level 1 and Level 2,” Whitehead says. “On a building per building basis, it’s probably a little less complicated and it’s less costly in terms of the audit requirements that go with it.”
Although Ontario boasted more office buildings ranked at Levels 2 to 4 than any other Canadian province or territory in 2014 —100 out of a national total of 293 — only one multi-residential building achieved that standing. This lone MURB accounted for just under 0.9 per cent of BOMA BESt Level 2 to 4 certifications in Ontario last year. The other six MURBs to attain higher ranking were all located in Alberta, representing more than 10 per cent of that province’s Level 2 to 4 certifications.
From a more positive perspective, six of the seven multi-residential buildings were certified at Level 3, posting a collective average score of 83. This also surpassed the average score for all Level 2 to 4 certified buildings in Alberta (where at least five of the MURBs must be located), which was 78.7.
Barbara Carss is editor-in-chief of Canadian Property Management.
