Clean and green – OMERS environmentally friendly investments

OMERS diverse investments are an essential part of funding pension benefits for your secure retirement. “The bottom line is that our investments must make strong returns to pay pensions,” says Michael Nobrega, OMERS President and Chief Executive Officer.

Among those investments are green initiatives that support your homes, office buildings, shopping malls and even the food you eat, he says. OMERS eco-friendly investments help make Ontario a cleaner and greener place to live.

The Dongara Pellet Plant

The Dongara Pellet Plant is a 200,000 tonne-per-year capacity, municipal solid waste processing facility in the City of Vaughan. Since July 2008, the plant has been processing York Region’s municipal solid waste into EnerPax⁺ fuel pellets, a renewable energy source.

“The pellets are used to provide heat energy to greenhouses in southwestern Ontario to produce peppers, tomatoes and other agricultural products,” says Darren Soanes, Vice President at Borealis Infrastructure, OMERS subsidiary company and partner of the Dongara plant.

The plant is designed to process over 800 tonnes of waste per day, and the process is done completely indoors. First, the waste is identified and separated – hazardous materials are removed and recyclable materials are sorted out.

Next, the remaining materials are shredded, mixed with other hot, clean burning additives and compressed into fuel pellets. The entire process takes only a few hours.

“The pellets are an ideal replacement or supplement for coal, but are much cleaner burning than coal,” says Darren.

He says this process is one of the best ways of reducing the need for landfills by reusing waste responsibly, while also producing energy. “Dongara alleviates long trips to landfills in the United States and Ontario by virtue of handling and processing waste appropriately in our own communities.”

Enwave’s Deep Lake Water Cooling System

Enwave Energy Corporation’s deep lake water cooling (DLWC) system has been working to cool downtown Toronto buildings and supply clean drinking water in the city since July 2004.

Steven Zucchet, Senior Vice President at Borealis Infrastructure, explains the process: “First, intake pipes extract cold water from Lake Ontario and run it through the Toronto Island Filtration Plant where it is turned into clean potable water. Next, the water goes to the John Street Pumping Station, where the cold temperature is transferred to the Enwave closed chilled-water supply loop. The chilled water goes through a network of pipes that run underground into office towers for air-conditioning, and the potable water is distributed to the city.”

It is the temperature of the water that is used to air condition the buildings, instead of running chillers. The system cools over 30 buildings in Toronto, including the Air Canada Centre, the Royal Bank Plaza and Mount Sinai Hospital.

“Compared with conventional air-conditioning, this system reduces up to 90% of electricity use,” says Steven. “DLWC takes advantage of a naturally renewable resource that few large metropolitan cities have access to.”

Bruce Power

Created in 2001, Bruce Power is Canada’s first and only private nuclear generating company, supplying clean power to Ontarians. Last year, it provided about 24% of Ontario’s power from its six reactors on the shores of Lake Huron in Bruce County.

“Every fourth home, hospital, school and factory in the province is powered by Bruce Power,” says Steve Cannon, Manager of Investor and Media Relations.

Steve says that “unlike other forms of energy, nuclear power doesn’t contribute to greenhouse gas and nothing goes up a smoke stack. It’s a very clean energy source, and that’s why more countries around the world are looking to nuclear power.”

Nuclear power is generated when a nuclear reaction heats up water that then becomes steam. The steam is directed into turbines that turn generators to create electricity.

“It’s efficient because only very small amounts of uranium are needed to create a very large amount of power,” says Steve.

The process of generating nuclear power is extremely safe. “All of the products in our entire process are tightly controlled,” he says. Once fuel is removed from a reactor, it is transferred to a storage bay inside the station. After a minimum of 10 years, the fuel is carefully transported to a storage facility owned and operated by Ontario Power Generation.

“We’re also very proud of the fact that Bruce Power is among the leaders in all industries – not just the nuclear industry – in the area of industrial safety, with more than 12 million work hours on our site without a single acute lost-time injury,” says Steve.

Sustainable Intelligence

Oxford Properties Group, OMERS real estate investment arm, proves its commitment to the environment through the Sustainable Intelligence program. “Oxford’s approach to sustainability is really about identifying opportunities and managing risks,” says Darryl Neate, Director, Sustainability.

Oxford aims to be a leader in building, maintaining and managing sustainable properties. It is the first real estate owner in Canada to set a greenhouse gas corporate reduction target.

“A 20% reduction by 2012 is our goal, and that’s on a per-square-foot basis on properties that we directly own and manage,” says Darryl. “We plan to reach our goal by investing in energy-efficient capital projects, continually improving our management practices and engaging our tenants.”

Darryl says that disciplined measurement of environmental indicators is key to the program. “Our scorecard addresses energy and atmosphere (electricity, natural gas, greenhouse gas emissions), water efficiency, sustainable sites (certification and awards), materials and resources (waste diversion rates) and indoor environmental quality (green cleaning).”

The Yorkdale Shopping Centre in Toronto is another example of Oxford’s leadership. Yorkdale won the first ever International Council of Shopping Centers’ award for sustainable design in 2006.

“We did a major redesign of the building, which significantly increased the daylight coming in,” says Darryl. A new 300-foot-long seamless glass ceiling made it possible to switch off 95% of Yorkdale’s common-area lighting during the day.

“We are continually trying to foster higher levels of sustainability through new ideas and innovative technologies,” says Darryl.

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