The Canada Green Building Council has awarded TELUS Garden, an office tower located in Vancouver, BC, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification, which is the highest of four levels of LEED certification.
The honour was presented recently at the launch of the Smart Prosperity initiative in the TELUS Garden building. The Smart Prosperity initiative is a diverse group of leaders from business, labour, Indigenous, youth, and environmental backgrounds. The group is committed to advancing innovation and accelerating Canada’s transition to a stronger and cleaner economy. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in attendance for the presentation.
Telus Garden is a one million square foot development that includes a 22-storey signature office tower, and a 47-storey residential tower that is currently under construction and targeting LEED Gold standards. It features 424 green homes and retail space. Lisi Mechanical Contractors, with head offices in Toronto, ON and Vancouver, BC, is the mechanical contractor for the building, and Integral Group is the mechanical engineer.
The towers feature a central plant with high efficiency heat pumps and waste heat recovery and have over 10,000 sq. ft. of green roofs, including two elevated roof forests. Additional innovative features include radiant heating and cooling, demand-driven ventilation and LED lighting.
“All of the water is heated via the district energy system, which takes waste heat from the adjacent Telus network building and uses it to heat the water for the office and residential towers,” explained Jill Yetman, TELUS media relations. She said that this results in an 80 per cent reduction of heating costs when compared to a building of similar size.
Other building highlights include: Vancouver’s largest solar power array that is located on the office tower’s rooftop and features 288 PV solar panels; a rainwater capture system that irrigates the gardens throughout the development; and high efficiency motion sensor lighting and charging stations for electric vehicles, and bike storage.
