Oxford’s commitment to ESG

For over 60 years, Oxford has been committed to connecting people to exceptional places and our environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices play an important role in delivering on that vision.

Being a leader in sustainability has played a critical part in how we cultivate connections, ensuring our positive impact extends beyond the four walls of our buildings. Property-by-property, our teams set clear and transparent objectives to hold ourselves accountable. We do a lot of small things, and many big things too, that come together to make a difference today and into the future.

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We are proud of our efforts. Here are a few highlights over the last year:

  • We have reduced our portfolio carbon emissions by 35%, on per square feet basis since 2015.
  • Our rooftop solar footprint now totals more than 260,000 square feet; representing 26% of our 1 million square feet target by 2024
  • More than 90% of our buildings have achieved an industry-leading green building certification for their region and sector.

The Global Real Estate Benchmark ranked our sustainability performance in the top 7% of more than 1200 funds. We believe in making communities better than we found them and our sustainability efforts will always reflect what matters most to us, our local partners and customers: Climate & Energy, Wellbeing, Materials & Resources and Communities.

In March 2021, for the second year in a row, we were named to Fast Company’s Annual List of the World’s Most Innovative Companies, honouring businesses that have found a way to be resilient and turn challenges into impactmaking processes where companies thrived and made an impact on their industries and culture as a whole.

We are proud to be ranked number eight in this year’s list for our approach to carbon reduction as climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time and private enterprises have a crucial role to play in addressing it. We know that there is no silver bullet to tackle climate change, so we commit to making a difference by taking bold, innovative and industry leading positions where we put sustainability at the forefront of our decisions.

An example of this in action is with The Stack, slated to be the first zero carbon skyscraper in North America. It will deploy smart building technology and ‘digital twins’ which means the building is continually learning how to become more energy efficient and attune to the needs of our customers. There is also an effort to promote healthy and sustainable choices around active transportation by over-indexing on bicycle stalls at the expense of private car parking and to make cycling or running to work as easy as possible with bespoke storage areas and world-class amenities.

Aside from this, we also invest in sustainable real estate, working with partners to have a social impact.

Most recently, we have made our first foray into the world of impact investing by backing the Dream Impact Fund, which invests into assets specifically targeted at having a positive impact on society including affordable housing, creating “inclusive communities” and resource efficiency in Canada.

Whether it’s pushing forward with ESG initiatives on our own, or working together with our customers and partners, we’re committed to ensuring our investments have a positive economic, social and environmental impact on our communities as we work to deliver local results on a global scale.