The pursuit of sustainability in Canada’s built environment is certainly a competition among rival firms but as Tridel’s director of innovation and sustainability recently pointed out, it’s also very much a global team effort.
The firm, which 20 years ago launched its initial Tridel Built Green Built for Life community, has published its first environmental, social and governance (ESG) report, titled Building a Sustainable Future.
Tridel sustainability executive Graeme Armster said the report, which is among the first published by a private residential developer, comes at a time when the world realizes it has to embrace shared ESG blueprints and reporting.
“There’s some common problems in the world that we’re all trying to address together. We are talking about the things we’re doing more,” said Armster. “I think this report is almost like an initiator, where it’s like, ‘let’s talk about it.’”
Tridel, which has 89,000 homes in its portfolio, has won the Building Industry and Land Development Association’s Green Builder of the Year 14 times and began producing corporate social responsibility reports in 2015. The company has 6,500 condo suites currently under development in 20 new communities in the Greater Toronto Area.
Armster said the initiatives within the ESG report send signals to industry partners. Financial and development partners need to speak the same language so they can work together and part of that is developing ESG “materiality assessments,” which is a standard way of evaluating the sustainability issues that are most important to companies themselves and also stakeholders outside the company.
“The industry approach on ESG is really the starting point is this materiality assessment,” explained Armster, noting Tridel worked with third-party consultants that provided the firm with a list of topics that are common to the sector. “That allowed us to organize these issues in terms of importance to the business and importance to external stakeholders.”
“Ultimately, in terms of our competitors, there’s a benefit to us sharing it from the standpoint that, as an industry, there’s a lot of growth that needs to happen in this space still. It’s happening fast, and we’re seeing a lot of change, and it’s good, but can we start to bring other people on the train faster.
“It gives us an opportunity to connect with one another and say, ‘Hey, look, I saw in your report, you’re looking at addressing this, we’re also looking at addressing this, here’s some of the industry challenges around that. Should we work together?’”
Among market forces, not only are owners requiring high ESG standards in RFPs, but firms also have to address customer expectations. More than ever, Armster said, people are looking for products that align with their values, with climate change front and centre.
Tridel’s Bayside community on Toronto’s waterfront was featured in the ESG report as a showcase not only for the firm’s sustainability initiatives but also social principles.
Three of four residences on the 13-acre site at Queens Quay and Sherbourne — Aqualina, Aquavista, Aquabella — are now complete and represent three of the GTA’s four multi-unit residential buildings to have achieved LEED Platinum.
The fourth Bayside residence, Aqualuna, is currently under construction and is targeted for LEED Platinum as well.
Tridel is a partner with Hines on Bayside. As one of their social initiatives, they joined with the City of Toronto and Artscape on Aquavista to create 80 affordable live-work rental housing suites for artists in the community.
The firm’s decarbonization strategy includes reducing GHG emissions through innovations in building envelopes, airtightness, embodied carbon, building data benchmarking and onsite renewable energy generation.
Armster said different combinations of those strategies were used on the four Bayside residences.
He said, “The unique thing, they are all high-performing but all done slightly differently with unique solutions.”
Both Aquabella and Aqualuna have balcony thermal breaks, while Aqualina is home to the Net Zero Energy Dwelling, or NetZED.
The NetZED concept is part of a broader sustainable design approach applied to every aspect of the home, including appliances, lighting, linens and mattresses.
“Each time we try these new solutions it adds to a toolbox of great tools that we can use,” Armster said.
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