The Stack is at the forefront of office sustainability

Imagine that this fall, you arrive at your workplace and immediately plant yourself onto an outdoor terrace to answer emails while breathing in fresh, mountain air. When you step inside to grab a coffee, there are floor-to-ceiling windows with unobstructed views of Vancouver Harbour. It’s a vista that calms your nervous system and empowers you to seize the day.

This is how one would work from inside The Stack, an Oxford Properties tower and state-of-the-art office development in downtown Vancouver, which is set to be completed in the fall as one of five projects in Canada targeting the Canada Green Building Council’s (CaGBC) Zero Carbon Building Pilot. Companies Ernst & Young, Blakes and DLA Piper have already signed pre-leases to move their Vancouver offices into The Stack.

In terms of architectural design, The Stack features a climbing, twisting box, created by the teams at James Cheng Architects and Adamson Associates Architects. The building spans 550,000 square feet with six decks, a rooftop patio and openable windows, so office-goers have a connection to the outdoors all day long.

OMERS appreciates that climate change is one of the defining issues of our time so we’re constantly looking for ways to shift our portfolio towards the green energy transition in three key areas: energy efficiency, renewables and green buildings, as part of a greater strategy to meet our goal of having a net-zero carbon emissions portfolio by 2050. (Read more about our sustainable investing policy here.)

Oxford Properties, owned by OMERS, has seen a 35% reduction in carbon emissions since 2015 and placed first in North American sustainability performance for four consecutive years by the Global Environmental, Social and Governance Benchmark for Real Assets (GRESB). The Stack is its first zero-carbon tower, targeting Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (otherwise known as LEED) Platinum standards, and one of just two office towers in all of Canada to be part of the Net-Zero Carbon pilot.

A day at The Stack will become a reality for some people soon. In the meantime, OMERS and Oxford will continue to set the standard for environmentally efficient investing and property management as we work toward our net-zero goal.