The following energy benchmarking champions are stakeholders in the commercial and institutional buildings sector who have committed to the routine practice of energy benchmarking and use benchmarking data to develop and implement energy-saving action plans that contribute to a healthier environment.
These organizations have successfully integrated benchmarking as part of their overall energy management strategy. Check out their success stories to learn how you can do the same.
First post secondary institution in Canada to be ENERGY STAR certified
Algonquin College is deeply committed to sustainability through its Sustainable Algonquin initiative, guided by the S-E-E (Social, Economic, Environmental) model. The Algonquin College Pembroke Campus achieved LEED Silver certification upon its 2012 construction, incorporating energy-efficient systems, sustainable materials, and designs that met strict criteria for energy performance, water use, and indoor environmental quality.
Annual tracking via Energy Star Portfolio Manager showed annual increases in energy consumption, deviating from expected efficiency due to factors like equipment aging, operational changes, and system drift.
To address this, the College's energy management team conducted an internal energy audit to identify inefficiencies across building systems. The first major intervention was a complete retrofit replacing all linear fluorescent lamps with LED lighting, which reduced electricity use, cut maintenance costs, and improved lighting quality in the classrooms.
Next, the College commissioned an engineering consultant for Existing Building Commissioning (EBCx) exercise. This detailed review compared current operations to original design intent, revealing drifted systems and multiple optimization opportunities in controls, HVAC scheduling, sensors, and automation. Partnering with its controls provider, the College implemented all key EBCx recommendations, restoring systems to optimal performance and achieving significant energy reductions.
These steps; energy audit, LED retrofit and EBCx tune up, demonstrate a proactive, systematic approach to maintaining and enhancing the Pembroke Campus's sustainability performance. This allows the College to deliver long-term environmental improvements by reducing our Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, reduce annual operating cost, align sustainability goals with capital planning and maintenance while improving the indoor environment for the learners.
Read more success stories
JLL helps Canada Post deliver energy savings
A service provider to Canada Post, JLL manages over 1,000 postal plants, offices, service centres and mail depots across Canada and manages facilities that are up to 130,000 square metres in size. David Faltenhine, JLL’s Portfolio Energy Manager, explains how JLL and Canada Post have become ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager benchmarking Champions:
In 2019, the JLL Energy team started using ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager® to benchmark a few dozen sites, gradually working up to several hundred sites. Now, we’re using ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager regularly to benchmark over 650 buildings. Before starting in earnest to validate the ENERGY STAR scores, we conducted two site visits – one to a location with a high score and one with a low score. We soon discovered several energy-saving opportunities at the low-scoring site and only a couple at the high-scoring site.
Armed with that validation, we set a plan in motion to engage stakeholders and educate them on the benefits of benchmarking with ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. As part of our plan, we developed a checklist to help people located on-site diagnose inefficiencies that could be negatively affecting their ENERGY STAR score such as simultaneous heating and cooling, failed controls, and lack of silent hour temperature setbacks. With this plan in place, we refreshed our scores bi-monthly and worked closely with our Facility management teams to improve our scores.
We observed that some sites had extremely low scores, so we developed an ‘Outlier Checklist’. The checklist helped us ensure that we weren’t paying someone else’s electricity bill in a multitenant building and that all the Property Use Details in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, such as hours of operation and gross floor area, were accurate. We also noticed that some facilities still had problems after completing the basic checklist, so the JLL Energy team developed a ‘Technical Checklist’ to dig a little deeper and discover more technical, nuanced problems like variable air volume boxes and controls issues.
As a result of these efforts, I’m proud to say that we’ve seen our average ENERGY STAR scores ̶ across the entire portfolio ̶ steadily increase while our energy bills are steadily declining!
Are you a recognized champion?
If you would like to see your organization listed among these champions or have your energy benchmarking efforts celebrated in our Heads Up: Building Energy Efficiency monthly newsletter, submit your story. For more information, email info.services@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca.