Features Business Sustainability
Canon Canada HQ earns LEED Gold Certification

Canon Canada has been awarded LEED Gold for New Construction and Major Renovations 2009 certification for its corporate headquarters in Brampton, Ont.

Surrounded by community-accessible green space, the 180,000-square-foot, five-storey building includes elements that encourage collaboration, foster well-being and promote practices that reduce its carbon footprint.

“We wanted to design a building that is respectful of the environment,” says Nobuhiko Kitajima, President and CEO of Canon Canada. “Our environmental charter outlines eight guiding principles, including pursuing pollution prevention, and energy and resource conservation in all activities. This certification recognizes this commitment to sustainability.”

The LEED green building program is the pre-eminent program for the design, construction, maintenance and operation of high-performance green buildings. LEED Certified buildings meet one of the highest environmental performance standards in the world, assessed by site development, water efficiency, energy efficiency, material section, indoor air quality and innovation in design.

“We congratulate Canon Canada on the successful LEED Gold certification of their Brampton headquarters,” says Thomas Mueller, President and CEO of the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) and GBCI Canada. “It’s heartening to see one of the world’s most respected brands aligning their corporate philosophy with LEED, the globally recognized standard for sustainability in the building industry.”

Here are the major features of Canon Canada’s LEED Gold certified headquarters:

• Energy reduction and efficiency is built in to the building’s lighting and cooling/heating systems, with LED lighting that helps to save approximately 70 to 80 percent of energy (compared with traditional 60W incandescent lights) and building systems are set to shut off after hours to help reduce energy.
• Natural light and solar-adaptive shading help to maximize daylight in the office while minimizing glare and solar heat.
• Rooftop greywater collection system helps save 20 percent of the building’s annual domestic city water usage; the water is reused for flushing and irrigation.
• Energy-saving office technologies like Canon’s own multifunction devices and display projectors automatically power down to minimize energy consumption in all meeting and copier rooms.
• A sophisticated kitchen digestion system helps divert and reduce organic waste from landfills.
• Encouraging employees to reduce carbon emissions by offering premium parking for green vehicles, employees that carpool as well as sheltered bicycle parking.   
• Employees and the surrounding residential community enjoy an expansive community green space, including a pond and recreational path, 6,000 drought-resistant shrubs and 200 drought-resistant trees to promote the area’s wildlife biodiversity.  
• Phasing out the sale of single-use plastic water bottles and plastic straws has begun at the headquarters and at all Canon Canada’s 13 office locations by the end of 2019.