2022 Sustainability Report

BUILDING MOMENTUM

View our 2022 Sustainability Report

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OUR BUSINESS

We are a group of nearly 500 passionate team members dedicated to building, developing, and managing homes for more than 13,000 Canadian households.

As community builders, we provide high quality homes and customer care to a diverse resident base ranging from students to families, to young professionals and seniors. We take great pride in catering to our tenants’ evolving needs and strive to have a positive impact in our communities.

Our Approach to

Sustainability

Environment

We are passionate about implementing sustainable projects and our objective is to pursue initiatives to reduce our environmental impacts. These initiatives benefit our residents, provide development opportunities for our teams and help to safeguard our environment through lower energy consumption, better water and waste management, and reduced GHG emissions.

Social

Our objective is to offer an unsurpassed resident experience in a culture where we value our differences and where everyone feels included and heard, creating a strong sense of belonging. Our goal is to offer a learning environment that supports our team members in their personal development. We believe that dealing with people is the heart of any business, and this is especially true in the multi-family sector since our business impacts someone’s home.

Governance

To maintain the confidence of investors and properly oversee the activities of management, adopting and upholding high standards of governance practices are essential. Our governance system is built on corporate ethics, transparency, compliance, and discipline with the objective of providing timely, accurate, and complete disclosure of all material information to the public.

Read Our Sustainability Policy

We strive to consider five broad stakeholder groups in all business decisions and policies – our residents, our team, our communities, our vendors and our investors.

At InterRent, our robust governance structure and policies are available on our website.

Learn More

Governance

At InterRent, our commitment to sustainability is driven by our belief to act responsibly for our future generations and treating each other fairly. This commitment, outlined in our Sustainability Policy is overseen by our Board, and upheld by each team member across the entire company, from acquisitions and asset management to talent management and resident engagement.

RESIDENTS

More than 13,000 households in Canada call an InterRent community their home and so our residents' satisfaction is paramount to our success.

How we performed in 2022

5 STARS

539 of 819 Google Reviews were 5 stars.

Issued satisfaction survey to all residents

100%

Net satisfaction

65%

More than 150 resident events in 2022

EMPLOYEES

Our team is the lifeblood of the company. We believe that an engaged team is energized, positive, and focused on delivering on our business strategy.

Survey response rate

86%

Employee engagement score

74%

INVESTORS

We believe it’s crucial to keep an ongoing and transparent dialogue with the investment community so that we have the financial flexibility to execute on our business strategy.

How we performed in 2022

137

Investor meetings in 2022

8

property tours

COMMUNITIES

We believe our role extends beyond the walls of our properties to the communities in which we operate. It is critical that the community organizations and agencies in our regions can count on us as a partner, both financially and with our time.

How we performed in 2022

1,310

total employee volunteer hours

$1.39 million

raised from golf tournament and donated to charity organizations

Performance metrics

Environmental

Environmental management and pushing to be better is core to who we are. We have been rolling out green initiatives for more than a decade and you can expect continued improvements in our environment performance in the years ahead.

Energy management

We continually search for ways to reduce energy consumption in our portfolio and increase the share of renewables in our energy mix. For example, almost 100% of our communities have high efficiency boilers and the majority of our suites are equipped with Energy Star® appliances.

Water management

Water is a precious resource that must be managed, and we do so by installing many water-saving measures in our buildings. For example, more than 90% of our suites have low-flow toilets and the majority of our portfolio has water-saving fixtures.

Waste management

In 2022, our waste data coverage improved to 34.2% from 16.4% from the previous year, corresponding to 2,444 tons of non-hazardous waste. It is a challenge to collect waste and recycling data in multi-family communities; however, this topic continues to be a focus for us.

Emissions

As a REIT with 100% Canadian exposure, we believe it is imperative to track our emissions and take action to drive GHG reduction in support of Canada’s climate goals.

Management of resident sustainability impacts

Our environmental management approach extends to resident sustainability impacts. Electrical submetering remains one of our largest conservation measures.

1.2%

LFL Energy Consumption. Despite heating requirement being up 12%

34.2%

WASTE DISCLOSURE COVERAGE
Compared to 16.4% in 2021

83%

of our portfolio has submetering capabilities

SPOTLIGHT

THE SLAYTE

Our latest development, The Slayte, is a prime example of adaptive reuse in action. This project provided an opportunity to repurpose an aging government office building into additional homes, exceeding today’s energy efficiency and waste diversion standards.

By reusing the structure, it is estimated that 4,575 metric tons of carbon was diverted, translating to a 55% savings in carbon compared to a typical new build.

This is equivalent to:

GHG emissions from driving an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle 1,750 times around the earth. Or,
GHG emissions from 3,733 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles driven for one year. Or,
CO2 emissions from the electricity use of all the houses in Niagara-on-the-Lake for almost 6 months.

What is adaptive reuse and why is it important?

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous office buildings in downtown areas across the country have been left with high vacancies. According to Colliers Canada, the national office vacancy rate stands at 13.3%, with downtown areas being particularly affected at 14.7% as of the first quarter of 2023. This is a significant increase from the pre-pandemic vacancy rate of roughly 8% three years ago.

By repurposing existing structures, adaptive reuse projects breathe new life into underutilized buildings and transforms the building itself, and the surrounding community into vibrant spaces. At InterRent, we recognize the significance of these projects as a unique and sustainable solution to reinvigorate communities, while providing much needed additional housing for Canadians.

CONSTRUCTION HIGHLIGHTS

The property scored in all three criteria of the MLI Select Program: 1 energy efficiency, 2 accessibility and 3 affordability to qualify for MLI Select level 1.