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Earth Rangers™, a Canadian non-profit organization, promotes the importance of protecting biodiversity and the adoption of more sustainable behavior through community events, online education and a positive science. Earth Rangers has successfully applied their efforts to their 60,000 square foot Toronto facility, making it one of the most energy efficient buildings on the planet.
In search of a results-oriented partnership
Earth Rangers was looking for partners who could donate equipment and expertise, and in 2009,
Schneider Electric came onboard as their building automation, metering, security, and lighting controls supplier. The installation began with Schneider’s building automation hardware and software, power monitoring and energy management tools including Juno lighting and PowerLink/Clipsal lighting controls.
Significant savings and benefits were realized, but true to the organization’s values, Earth Rangers wanted to do even more. After earning a Gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) for New Construction certification, Earth Rangers decided to further demonstrate their commitment to reducing energy use and CO2 emissions by pursuing a Platinum LEED for Existing Buildings certification – the highest level of certification offered under LEED.
Peter Kendall, Executive Director of Earth Rangers points out that “if we want to set the standard for how to operate a truly energy efficient, “green” building, it’s vitally important that we continue to reduce our own facility’s energy usage.”
Hosted energy management solution delivers tangible benefits quickly
Schneider Electric recommended EcoStruxure Building Operation*, an advanced energy management information system that leverages existing real-time monitoring and control systems with:
- automated tools to identify, analyze, and report on energy savings and sustainability initiatives
- automatic transfer of energy monitoring system data to a public-facing display kiosk and corporate website
- verified utility billing data and reports providing insight on power sent back to the grid through on-site generation
- powerful management tools to validate the effectiveness of their energy savings initiatives and investments, helping document the true return on investment in dollars, kWh and CO2 saved.
Utilizing professional design and commissioning from Schneider Electric and anchored by the intuitive EcoStruxure Building Operation, the new solution began providing actionable energy information to help Earth Rangers save time, reduce effort, and improve total facility energy performance. Key energy data was centralized into a single “facility scorecard” for straightforward energy monitoring, real-time and historical analysis, and reporting.
This key performance information enabled the staff to evaluate and justify new energy efficiency building improvements while detecting and correcting poor energy efficiency in building automation, control, and HVAC systems.
Recognition for outstanding green building achievements
What’s more, EcoStruxure Building Operation contributed substantially to Earth Rangers achieving a Platinum LEED certification by helping the organization target multiple credits under LEED Existing Building, namely Energy and Atmosphere Credits 3.2 and 3.3 (system level metering), along with Water Efficiency Credit 1.1 (sub-metering and reporting). Additional benefits include 20% year-over-year reduction in energy consumption and greenhouse gas savings of 444.2 tons of CO2. Partnering with Schneider Electric was the right move for Earth Rangers. “Upgrading our building from LEED Gold to LEED Platinum required us to continue reducing energy usage.
Additional benefits include 20% year-over-year reduction in energy consumption
Schneider Electric building automation/ energy management solutions helped us achieve this goal and gave us a much better view of where energy is being used in our facility and the intelligence to help us optimize energy usage to the point where we are completely self-sustainable,” says Kendall.
Find out more about Earth Rangers’ experience with EcoStruxure by reading the full success story
