Large Canadian Real Estate Company leverages Brightly Stream to create and manage a sustainability program for their $30 billion portfolio.

Challenges 

Creating a sustainability program for a portfolio primarily comprised of commercial real estate buildings can be daunting, especially when all the data is tracked in spreadsheets. Manual data tracking was not a sustainable process, as errors are common with manual entry. With more of a focus on decarbonization targets and increased requests from property owners and partners, the company’s sustainability team knew they needed high-quality data. Plus, as the company continued to add commercial real estate properties to its portfolio, it became clear that a less burdensome process was needed.  

Before moving to Brightly Stream™, submeter data had to be downloaded and manually subtracted for each tenant. Streamlining the process allowed the program to scale with the company. 

Additionally, the team received more frequent requests from internal clients, owners, and joint venture partners about their emissions targets. What was once an annual request, became quarterly, requiring more frequent report generation.  

The company needed a solution to address current challenges and support future expansion. As they moved into industrial and residential real estate, they required a solution capable of handling all their needs.

Solution 

After evaluating the market for solutions to help the company report on their energy and emissions targets, this large North American Real-Estate company chose Stream as their energy and sustainability management solution.  

The company’s Senior Sustainability Manager explained that they Selected Brightly because “Stream can separate tenant energy and emissions data from the general building space, providing a clear view of the property performance.” Additionally, Stream offers a comprehensive package, eliminating the need to pull information from multiple sources.  

Results 

The move to Stream has allowed the company’s sustainability management team to spend less time on manual tasks and more time focusing on the bigger picture. Gone are the days of manually entering meter and utility data or subtracting tenant usage from overall emissions and energy usage. Stream enabled the company to bulk upload utility bills, saving a vast amount of time.  

During the onboarding process, the company’s Senior Sustainability Manager communicated that all Sustainability teams would benefit from having a dedicated Fuel & Refrigerants tracking module to help with Scope 1 emissions reporting. Realizing how useful this would be, Brightly prioritized the development of the module and released it for all Stream clients to use. 

Now, the company’s program has a platform that eliminates manual tasks and allows the program to scale easily as new properties and industries are added. As they look forward to Scope 3 emissions, residential and industrial properties, and changes to their international portfolio, they feel confident handling all the reporting, thanks to Stream. 

Stream provides the company with a clear understanding of their sustainability data, and over the years Stream and the company have used data to quantify ROI. For instance, from 2014 to 2024over a 10-year period, the company saw a 15% decrease in utility costs and a 32% decrease in carbon emissions. With Stream’s help, the company was also able to improve their Energy StarENERGY STAR Sscore by 18 points on averagefrom 62 to 80. 

Moving forward, the company recognizes that sustainability is key to long-term growth. The sustainability program has strong buy-in at all levels, thanks partly to Stream's ease of use. With bonuses tied to performance in the program, operations managers are motivated to ensure their properties meet benchmarks and targets. 

Creating a platform that reduces time spent on data entry and validation and increases time for analysis has been crucial in transforming this sustainability program into an industry-leading initiative. Our partnership with this large North American commercial real estate company has been mutually beneficial. Not only have we improved our platform based on their feedback, but they now have a solution to help create more sustainable communities across Canada.