The benefits of benchmarking energy usage in buildings are tremendous, and according to Natural Resources Canada, effective energy management is a significant competitive advantage for organizations. Listed below are the benefits of Energy benchmarking;

• providing objective, reliable information on energy use and the benefits of improvements
• increasing general awareness of energy efficiency among building occupants, which in turn may effect changes in behaviour
• prioritizing poor performing facilities for immediate improvement
• identifying best practices that can be replicated, either within a building or across a portfolio of buildings
• establishing reference points for measuring and rewarding good performance
• helping to develop a comprehensive energy management action plan and build the business case for capital investments (retrofits)
• leading to savings that will lower energy costs while maintaining or even increasing profit margins

The ClimateWise Building Challenge is a York Region wide, friendly awards and recognition competition created to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) in buildings through collaboration, education, and innovation. For the remainder of this Participant Guide the competition will be referred to as the ClimateWise Challenge.

The competition is free of cost and open to building owners, property managers, and tenants who want to take action on climate change while improving your bottom by implementing responsible energy operations and behavioural practices.

Our ClimateWise challenge is modelled after the Energy Star Battle of the Building (BoB) competition, a successful U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program, which was first launched in 2010 and has been continuously run and updated since. The competition had over 6500 buildings participate in 2015, with the winner achieving energy reductions of 35%.

ClimateWise Business Network is a program of Windfall Ecology Centre, a non-profit social enterprise. Established in 1998, Windfall Ecology Centre is dedicated to building sustainable communities. Windfall Centre's activities focus on empowering communities to create lasting wealth in a carbon constrained 21^st century. To learn more about Windfall Ecology Centre visit www.windfallcentre.ca.

ClimateWise Business Network is a network of leading businesses and organizations operating in and around York Region Ontario who are setting and achieving sustainability goals. ClimateWise members are supported with training, a cloud-based carbon accounting platform, expert plan review, and a comprehensive event season focused on connecting members with the expertise and collaborative learning opportunities necessary to move their organisations toward more sustainable operations.

To learn more about ClimateWise Business Network visit www.climatewise.ca

The ClimateWise Challenge, is a recognized Regional Ally and Partner of the BOMA Toronto race2reduce program.

As a Regional Ally, ClimateWise offers enhanced outreach and support to public and private sectors in York and surrounding regions and provides resources to help them move their organizations toward more sustainable and low carbon operations.

During the November 2020 CREST Awards, Brent Kopperson, the Founder and Executive Director of Windfall Ecology Centre, was honoured to provide a congratulatory statement to the winners and participants of the race2race program.

The collaboration between BOMA Toronto and ClimateWise Challenge brings synergy and economies of scale to the mutual efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emission from the buildings sector.

The ClimateWise Challenge is open to buildings in the Commercial, Multi-Residential, and MUSH (Municipalities, Universities, Schools, and Hospitals) sectors in York Region.

York Region encompasses nine municipalities including:

• Town of Aurora
• Town of East Gwillimbury
• Township of King
• City of Markham
• Town of Newmarket
• City of Richmond Hill
• City of Vaughan
• Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville
• Regional Municipality of York

ClimateWise Challenge is designed, administered, and managed by ClimateWise Business Network, a program of Windfall Ecology Centre.

The ClimateWise Challenge will take place over a 3-year period, i.e. from 2021-2023. However, the intention is to extend the program beyond this date.

The ClimateWise Building Challenge has received the support of the Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF).

Any eligible building within the following municipalities in York Region:

• Town of Aurora
• Town of East Gwillimbury
• Township of King
• City of Markham
• Town of Newmarket
• City of Richmond Hill
• City of Vaughan
• Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville
• Regional Municipality of York

There is no cost to enroll in the ClimateWise Challenge.

The ClimateWise Challenge is an opportunity to join your industry peers in collaborating on climate action to build a sustainable future. Participation is a highly visible commitment to improve building performance and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It is done through implementing strategies and operational best practices to improve energy building performance within a closely matched peer group. Participants are recognized for their outstanding performance and leadership in building performance, collaboration, innovation, and emission reduction at a prestigious region-wide awards event — the York Region Sustainability Awards.

Here are a few convincing reasons to join the challenge:

• Improve your bottom line: An energy efficient building reduces operational costs and increases property asset value,
• Connect and network with industry peers: You'll have the opportunity to network with your York Region peers throughout the competition,
• Show York Region pride and leadership: Your participation will help York Region be recognized as a community that takes an active approach in climate action
• Access to education and resources to drive a culture of sustainability: We'll play a supporting role in the adoption of sustainability within your company by providing resources to succeed such as tenant engagement toolkits as well as educational webinars, virtual events, and workshops,
• Have fun while meeting your targets and celebrating your accomplishments!

The first year of the ClimateWise Challenge will focus on energy emission and water intensity reductions. Inclusion of other reduction strategies such as waste will be considered in future years.

Visit www.ClimateWiseChallenge.ca for more information and to register your building(s) and/or leased space(s) in the ClimateWise Challenge.

Once you have registered the ClimateWise Challenge team will provide you with a plan of action with detailed resources and technical support throughout the competition. This includes energy saving tips, energy benchmarking tools, and advice from industry leaders.

All building owners, property managers, and tenants of:

• Commercial buildings
• Multi-residential buildings
• Municipalities, Universities, Schools and Hospitals
• Hospitality and Recreational Buildings

No. The Challenge is open to members and non-members of ClimateWise Business Network. However, it is encouraged that you become a member to take full advantage of member benefits (professional development programs, networking, advocacy, and industry best practices).

For information on membership, please visit www.ClimateWise.ca/benefits/

Registration is simple.

Visit www.ClimateWiseChallenge.ca/join/ to join the ClimateWise Building Challenge. You will receive a confirmation of your registration and be offered to book a consultation with a representative from the ClimateWise Building Challenge

The ClimateWise Challenge will be using Read-Only data from Portfolio Manager as one of the eligibility requirements. The ClimateWise Challenge needs the building performance data from Portfolio Manager in order to assess the performance of individual participants (for the purpose of selecting winners at the York Region Sustainability Awards) as well as provide routine feedback to encourage participants to continuously improve the performance of the building(s) and/or leased space. The aggregate data from all participants are also used to assess the Challenge's own program performance.

NOTE: All program data is kept private and confidential. Refer to the Privacy section below.

Registration for the first-year of the Challenge opens in early January 2021, and will remain open throughout the year.

In order to participate you will initially need to enter baseline data for January 2018 through to December 2018, plus the yearly data below to demonstrate changes to the baseline year.

This will be followed by the dates, outlined below, for data entry into Portfolio Manager in order to qualify for Awards for that year.

Buildings outside of York Region can participate in the ClimateWise Challenge for the sole purpose to benchmark your building portfolio, but are not eligible for awards. At this time only buildings within York Region will be eligible for awards.

Yes, you can participate in multiple initiatives and challenges as long as the goals and objectives are not conflicting.

For the purpose of the ClimateWise Challenge, “tenant” refers to a business who is leasing a room or floor of a building owned by someone else. For example, Company A is leasing two floors of Building B. Therefore, Company A is a tenant of Building B.

You could participate without your building owner if you are separately metered and billed. If this is not the case, you will require relevant data from your building owner. Even if you are eligible to participate on your own, we encourage you to get your building owner on board because the collaboration between the building owners and tenants is one of the founding principles of the ClimateWise Challenge.

We will support you in the process of presenting the many benefits to your building owner including:

• Access to tools and resources that could help with saving energy costs and reducing GHG emissions
• Seminars and webinars on a multitude of building performance related topics
• Stay informed of government incentives for retrofits, audits, etc.
• Network of building professionals
• Sharing of best building management practices
• Recognition for better performance

Meet other tenants in your building and collaborate with them and your building owner to share best practices and make your leased space a better place to work and learn. As a tenant you will also have access to toolkits, informational and educational webinars and other resources to help your green team or champion. Improving the energy efficiency of your space will not only reduce your operating costs, but can also improve your well-being and productivity.

Although you can register without a tenant, we encourage you to get at least one tenant on board because the collaboration between building owners and tenants is one of the founding principles of the ClimateWise Challenge. Tenants might represent a large portion of your building, and without tenant action, your common area achievements might otherwise become diluted.

We will support you in the process of presenting the many benefits to participating as a tenant, which align with the below benefits for you as a building owner:

• Access to tools and resources that could help with saving energy costs and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
• Seminars and webinars on multitude of building performance related topics
• Stay informed of government incentives for retrofits, audits ,etc.
• Network of building professionals
• Sharing of best practices
• Recognition for better performance as a tenant.

Improving the energy efficiency of your building will not only reduce your operating costs, but can also attract and retain top tenants, improve occupant well-being, increase property/asset value, and help in solving the climate crisis. This is a win for all participants involved.

If the building is jointly managed, then yes, both building owners will need to be included in the registration.

Building to higher standards alone will not guarantee performance. In order to maximize your return on investment, you also need to focus on how to manage and operate your building(s) on a daily basis and explore ways to continuously improve its performance which include operational and behaviour changes. The ClimateWise Challenge will curate resources for buildings built to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards.

Another very important benefit of participating in the ClimateWise Challenge is the recognition by your community for your accomplishments.

Yes! We will send you a Bulk enrollment excel templates which will help you save time by importing directly into Portfolio Manager.

Research from other successful building challenge competitions indicate that on average, participants achieve an annual reduction of 5% of greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, over the duration of the ClimateWise Challenge, participants will progress to achieve a collective average reduction of 15% greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The goal of the ClimateWise Challenge is to take action on climate change and recognize your achievements along the way.

We encourage buildings to set feasible targets that align with their available time and resources. Target metrics should align with the outlined awards categories.

We also encourage becoming a member of ClimateWise Business Network for buildings who would like assistance on creating a roadmap to reduce energy and emissions as well as set a reduction target.For information on the awards categories, please visit www.ClimateWiseChallenge.ca

Yes! The 15% reduction target is a collective target for all participants.

We recognize that some building owners and tenants have already made efforts towards improving performance in their buildings, and that achieving a further 15% reduction across various performance areas may be more difficult.

In other cases, building owners and tenants may not have sufficient resources to help them achieve their targets.

In both cases, you can still participate as long as you are committed to improving building performance and are willing to implement measures to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Again, your participation shows that you are taking action on climate change and we want to recognize your hard work and achievements along the way.

Yes, energy consumption data must be submitted into Portfolio Manager as Read-Only access . You must indicate energy consumption data (e.g. electricity, natural gas) over the 12 months of the calendar year. In addition to the collection of energy data there is an award category that requires a narrative as a submission.

Throughout the ClimateWise Challenge, measuring participants' performance and making comparative analyses of energy consumption will be carried out by means of the free online tool, Portfolio Manager). When you sign up for the ClimateWise Challenge, you must create an account for your building using Portfolio Manager.

To get started go to Portfolio Manager.

The next step is to share your Portfolio Manager account data with us as read-only access at your earliest convenience. Our account name is: ClimateWise Building Challenge.

If you'd like additional support, please contact the Ontario Benchmarking Help Centre.

If you find you need more details go to Portfolio Manager to find additional documents to support how to share data with others by visiting Share and request data | ENERGY STAR Buildings and Plants | ENERGY STAR. The Portfolio Manager tool also provides free training resources and webinars for you.

If that is the case, we suggest you encourage your tenants to create a Portfolio ManagerM account and share their profiles with you to ensure that all energy consumption in the building is taken into account.

Please consult the “How do I benchmark a tenant space” by visiting How do I benchmark a tenant space? (force.com)

In addition to data on energy consumption, the following data must be input and provided:

• Building type
• Gross floor area
• Occupancy rate
• Types of use
• Operating hours

For more detailed information please refer to the Portfolio Manager training website which provides training content, demonstration videos and how-to FAQs on a wide variety of Portfolio Manager features.

Please refer to the Guide to energy and water reporting: Guide to energy and water reporting | Ontario.ca

Your energy consumption data and your gross floor area(GFA)will be used to measure the weather-normalized site energy use intensity (EUI), and GHG emissions, which are the indicators used to compare the energy performance of buildings participating in the ClimateWise Challenge. Your property use details, such as occupancy rate, type of use and operating hours, will be verified to determine whether the reduction in the energy consumption is linked to energy efficiency measures, and not to changes in property use. You must update these details for each year of the competition.

The ClimateWise Challenge Award winners will have the following data elements disclosed:

Building Identifiers

• Property name
• Parent property name (when multiple buildings are reported together)
• Address
• City
• Postal Code
• Province

Building Characteristics

• Primary property use type
• Secondary property use type(s)
• Year built
• Number of buildings on the property (when multiple buildings are reported together)

Performance Metrics (reporting done in imperial)

• Electricity use intensity
• Weather-normalized electricity use intensity
• Natural gas use intensity
• Weather-normalized natural gas use intensity
• Source energy use intensity
• Weather-normalized source energy use intensity
• Site energy use intensity
• Weather-normalized site energy use intensity
• Water use intensity
• Greenhouse gas emissions intensity
• ENERGY STAR score (if applicable)

We will not publicly disclose total energy and water use, total greenhouse gas emissions and gross floor area for individual buildings reported. We will also not publish the following information, although we may use this data to publish analysis of building performance at an aggregated level (for example, analyzing size distribution of all buildings of a type):

Building Characteristics

• Property Gross Floor Area – Self-reported
• Gross floor area of specific property use types
• Occupancy rate
• Property notes

Total Usage Data and Greenhouse Gases

• Electricity use (either grid-purchased or generated from onsite renewable systems)
• Weather-normalized electricity use (same as above)
• Natural gas use
• Weather-normalized natural gas use
• Fuel oil use (#1, 2, 4, 5 and 6)
• Diesel use
• District energy use (steam, hot water or chilled water)
• Kerosene use
• Propane use
• Wood use
• Coal use
• Source energy use
• Weather-normalized source energy use
• Site energy use
• Weather-normalized site energy use
• Water use
• Total greenhouse gas emissions

Reporter Identifiers

• Property Data Administrator name
• Property Data Administrator email address
• Portfolio Manager property ID
• Portfolio Manager parent property ID (when multiple buildings are reported together)

Site energy is the total amount of heat and electricity consumed by a building, as indicated in your utility bills. Site EUI is the energy consumption of the site sectionided by the surface area of the property in gigajoules (GJ) per square meter. That single common metric allows for comparisons of energy consumption in buildings of different sizes.

Weather-normalized energy use is the energy your building would have used under average weather conditions. Weather conditions from a given year might be much warmer or colder than average, so weather-normalized energy use takes that difference into account.

Consequently, 12 consecutive months of energy consumption data are required to determine that value. For the purpose of the ClimateWise Challenge, participants will use a baseline year of 2019.

Your building(s) for which we don't have access to data will be excluded from the awards in that particular year.

If you do not provide ClimateWise Challenge access to your data by the deadline, you still have the opportunity to benchmark your own building's energy consumption from the calendar year over the baseline year.

Yes, a Portfolio Manager account is required. But don't worry, the Ontario Benchmarking Help Centre is available to support and guide you on how to set up, access, use, and report through Portfolio Manager.

For further information on privacy using the Portfolio Manager tool, please visit Portfolio Manager Privacy.

Information will only be shared with utilities and program management staff and contracted service providers to the extent required to carry out objectives of the program.

Any information that is published will be done so in a way that protects the identity of people and their associate properties or leased spaces.

ClimateWise Building Challenge will aggregate the data on an annual basis.

Annually the Award winners of the ClimateWise Challenge will be shared publicly using existing marketing and communication channels (digital and printed mediums) including: notices, newsletters, industry magazines, and social media.

By taking part in the ClimateWise Challenge, participants agree to share data entered in their Portfolio Manager accounts for the purpose of evaluating their energy performance. ClimateWise Business Network may share the data with its partners, in a confidential and depersonalized fashion, to create a statistical census on the energy performance of York Region buildings.

ClimateWise Challenge will not share or publicize any participant-specific details without the explicit consent of the participant.

If you consent, your achievements will be shared with other participants and with the industry in general through the Windfall Ecology Centre websites (ClimateWise Business Network, ClimateWise Building Challenge, Ontario Benchmarking Help Centre) special participant profiles, case studies, social media, and newsletters.

Yes. A promotional kit will be provided to participants once the Portfolio Manager data has been completed and their participation in the ClimateWise Building Challenge becomes official.

We encourage participants to announce and highlight their leadership and participation on their website, social media accounts, and any other way they see fit.

The promotional kit will include digital and print assets including:

• Website banners
• Social media message templates
• Letter templates
• ClimateWise Building Challenge logos

As a registered participant, you can use the ClimateWise Building Challenge logo. The Ontario Trillium Foundation logo must also be present to recognize their support.

We will be sending you a media kit to include the ClimateWise Building Challenge and Ontario Trillium Foundation proper use of the logos and messaging.

Sponsorship opportunities for ClimateWise Building Challenge will be available by contacting ClimateWiseChallenge@Windfallcentre.ca.

An awards gala will be held each year to highlight winning initiatives. Winners in each category will be selected based on energy savings verified as described above.

Every year, certificates of participation will be distributed to acknowledge your commitment. The certificate will be given to all participants whose buildings are registered and whose data were entered before the deadline.

Awards will be presented at an event annually that will also incorporate the York Region Sustainability Awards.

Energy savings are validated by ClimateWise Building Challenge which consists of energy efficiency specialists. On-site visits will be organized as needed. The jury reserves the right to conduct certain additional verifications before awarding a prize.

When you register for the ClimateWise Challenge and submit your data before the deadline, your candidacy is automatically considered for the awards that are based on Portfolio Manager data collection. In order to be eligible for the Best Practices Achievement award, you must submit an application by completing by submitting an application as a written narrative.

The criterion for the energy performance awards is weather normalized site energy use intensity. It allows for evaluation of a building's energy performance by taking weather conditions into account. The evaluation criterion for the GHG target awards is the percentage of GHG emissions reduction in metric tons of CO2 equivalents.

The awards are based on the categories below:

• Recognition of participation certificate
• Target based – participants who meet target of 5% in energy and/or water use intensity
• Best in Class – Building Type categories listed during registration process – building owner participation only
• Top Finishers – based on 3 metrics: GHG, Energy and water
  • Building Owner – based on sq ft categories - over 250k, between 250-100K, under 100K
  • Tenants – based on employee base - 101-500, 100-51, 50-11
• Stories of success – A narrative (350 words) describing unique challenges, collaboration and community engagement.
• Quarterly incentive prizes based on program engagement