Green buildings

• Place Victoria, Gatineau, Quebec
• Royal Canadian Mounted Police ‘E’ Division Headquarters, Surrey, British Columbia
• Greenstone Building, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories
• Normand Maurice Building, Montréal, Quebec
• Jean Canfield Building, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island

As the government's manager of real estate, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) is responsible for buildings across the country. Many government buildings have environmentally friendly features.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is an international green building certification program. Below are a few examples of buildings that received LEED Gold or Platinum certification.

Place Victoria, Gatineau, Quebec

• Construction completed: 2013
• Certified: LEED Platinum
• Energy consumption: estimated to be 47% less than a comparable building
• Green features include:
  • triple-pane windows;
  • increased insulation in the walls and roof;
  • high-efficiency heating, cooling and ventilation systems;
  • efficient lighting system;
  • accessible by public transit;
  • indoor bike storage;
  • rainwater is collected and used to flush toilets;
  • native/adaptive plant species are used for landscaping, eliminating the need for irrigation.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police ‘E’ Division Headquarters, Surrey, British Columbia

This three-building complex is located in a forested area of Surrey. Made up of a seven-storey office tower, a data centre in a post disaster facility and a workshop/storage facility, the complex accommodates 2,400 Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) staff.

• Construction completed: 2012
• Certified: LEED Gold
• Energy consumption: estimated to be 50% less than comparable buildings
• Green features include:
  • increased insulation in the walls and roof;
  • an efficient chilled-beam heating, ventilation and air conditioning system in the main building;
  • a waterside economizer for cooling in the data centre;
  • heat from the data centre and from telecommunications is used to provide hot water and heat to other parts of the complex;
  • an efficient lighting system that uses 18% less electricity than a comparable building;
  • two green roofs;
  • a pond that collects all stormwater from the site—water from the pond is used to water the plants on the building's green roof and in its courtyard lawn;
  • bicycle storage and change facilities to encourage alternative forms of commuting;
  • dedicated carpool parking.

Greenstone Building, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories

This four-storey structure located in downtown Yellowknife accommodates 200 federal employees from a number of departments.

• Construction completed: 2007
• Certified: LEED Gold
• Energy consumption: estimated to be 50% less than a comparable building
• Green features include:
  • high-efficiency propane boilers with lower greenhouse gas emissions than the usual fuel oil furnaces;
  • a high-efficiency air-cooled condensing chiller;
  • a south-facing glass curtain wall that has solar cells embedded in it to collect solar power—light and warmth that come in from the windows help maintain a comfortable working temperature inside the building, even in the middle of winter when outside temperatures can drop to -50 °C;
  • hot water heated by solar energy;
  • triple-pane windows that can open and close;
  • waterless urinals, duel-flush toilets and low-flow faucets and showers, which mean the building uses about 50% less water than a comparable building;
  • a green roof;
  • a cistern to collect rain and groundwater—water from the cistern is used for landscaping and to flush toilets.

Normand Maurice Building, Montréal, Quebec

The Normand Maurice Building was constructed on the site of an old foundry in downtown Montréal. It accommodates several hundred employees from five federal government agencies.

• Construction completed: 2006
• Certified: LEED Gold
• Energy consumption: estimated to be 55% less than a comparable building
• Green features include:
  • geothermal wells to tap the heating and cooling capacity of the earth;
  • radiant heating and cooling rather than cooling or heating the ventilation air only;
  • brise soleils (louvered sun shades) to shut out excessive sunlight so it does not get too hot in the building in the summer;
  • a green roof;
  • rainwater used to flush toilets;
  • bicycle storage and change facilities to encourage alternative forms of commuting;
  • some materials from the pre-existing foundry were incorporated into the new building to reduce waste.

Jean Canfield Building, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island

The Jean Canfield Building, a four-storey building located in Charlottetown, accommodates approximately 500 government employees from several departments and agencies.

• Construction completed: 2007
• Certified: LEED Gold
• Energy consumption: estimated to be 57% less than a comparable building
• Green features include:
  • solar panels to capture energy from the sun—the south wing of the building is skewed 45 degrees to optimize the solar exposure;
  • high-efficiency heating, cooling and ventilation systems;
  • high levels of insulation;
  • windows that open and close;
  • rainwater used for toilets
  • low-flow water fixtures and waterless urinals;
  • stormwater management incorporated into the design;
  • accessible by public transit;
  • bicycle storage and change facilities to encourage alternative forms of commuting.