Saskatchewan Polytechnic’s Moose Jaw Campus was one of 12 provincially owned buildings that received certification under the Building Owners and Managers Association’s (BOMA) Building Environmental Standards (BEST). 

The Moose Jaw Campus received a Gold certification. In order to achieve gold, the building is rated in areas such as energy, water use, air quality, tenant comfort and wellness, custodial upkeep, waste management and more. 

SaskBuilds fills out a questionnaire for BOMA that outlines what is being done in the building in those categories. A third-party verifier then does an audit of the building and scores the building on what the questionnaire says versus what actually was achieved. In order to reach a Gold certification, a building would have to score between 80 to 89 per cent on its questionnaire. 

“Achieving almost 85 per cent at Moose Jaw really reflects on that property management team, the pride that they take in their work and really the level of effort that they’re going to with everything and paying attention to the small details and really working hard for our clients, tenants and the public that is in that building,” said director of engineering and sustainability at the Ministry of SaskBuilds and Procurement Curtis Dorosh. 

At the Moose Jaw Campus, SaskBuilds reviewed the energy use, tested the water quality, upgraded the ventilation to ensure enough fresh air was getting in, did a radon assessment, reviewed the cleaning products used and sent out a tenant satisfaction survey. 

“Recent small upgrades included changing out some of the lighting to LED lighting in the building and most of the building got a new building management system. That’s like your (Google) Nest thermostat for your home except on a bigger scale. It's a programmable thermostat for the whole building,” Dorosh said. 

Out of the 12 provincially owned buildings to receive BOMA BEST certifications, one received platinum certification (the Roy Romanow Provincial Laboratory in Regina), 10 received gold and one received silver (the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Regina). 

“We’re always looking at ways to improve our operations. Whether that is making our green cleaning products policy a little more stringent or the radon testing that is relatively new. We’re always trying to do better,” Dorosh said. 

Dorosh added that this year was a huge improvement. They went from only five buildings certified as Gold in 2022 to 10 this year. 

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