25 St. Clair Avenue East Rehabilitation Project, designed by DIALOG, has won the Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) Ontario Embodied Carbon Awards 2023 in the ‘Major Retrofits’ category.
The inaugural Ontario Embodied Carbon Awards was held on Thursday, November 28 at the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto, in collaboration with CLF Toronto and CLF Ottawa, to celebrate the achievements of low embodied carbon projects in Ontario. The awards program was created to empower industry professionals to prioritize the reduction of embodied carbon emissions from buildings and infrastructure.
In the four awards categories; new construction for residential, new construction for commercial/institutional/industrial, major retrofits, and innovation in industry, projects were honoured for their accomplishments in striving to minimize their environmental impact by decarbonizing the built environment.
25 St. Clair Avenue East Rehabilitation Project
The 25 St. Clair Avenue East project is a major renovation of an existing ten-storey federal office building in Toronto, Ontario. As part of its Sustainable Design Strategy, the Government of Canada selected the 25 St. Clair Avenue East building as the flagship model to demonstrate their commitment to achieving a carbon neutral building portfolio by 2030. The building will serve as Ontario region’s main Government of Canada building.
The building was originally constructed as two connected buildings, 25 and 55 St. Clair Avenue East – 25 St Clair Ave East constructed in 1950, and 55 St Clair Ave East in 1957 as an extension. Rather than a full demolition and re-build, the Government of Canada decided to re-use the existing structures in a deep green retrofit. The reuse of building components reduces the demand to produce new building materials and related embodied carbon emissions. The new design will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 80% and put occupant health and wellbeing first. Tenant move-in has begun in Fall 2023.
About Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF)
The Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) is accelerating the transformation of the building sector to radically reduce the embodied carbon in building materials and construction through collective action. CLF pioneers research, creates resources, fosters cross-collaboration, and incubates member-led initiatives to bring embodied carbon emissions of buildings down to zero. The CLF network is made up of architects, engineers, contractors, material suppliers, building owners, and policymakers who care about the future and are taking bold steps to decarbonize the built environment, with a keen focus on eliminating embodied carbon from buildings and infrastructure. Currently, the network brings together 5000+ professionals from 2500+ companies, 75+ countries, and 1000+ cities around the world.
Lead image by Shiraz Ali.
