Source: http://www.straight.com/files/v3/2012/10/Telus_Garden_Night_Edit_0.jpg
In 2015, Telus opened a new LEED Platinum certified office tower in Downtown Vancouver. Telus Garden is one of the most sustainable developments in North America to date. The building is impressive to say the least. By the numbers:
- $750 million: development cost
- 80: the percentage reduced of on-grid energy
- 10,000: square footage of garden terraces
- 1 million: reduction in kilograms of CO2 emissions annually
- 100: percentage of air that is fresh rather than recycled
Every time I learn more about Telus Gardens, I am in awe of a building that authentically took context into design with regards to the environment and people occupying the space. By extension, this is what Telus aims to achieve through their mission statement “Diversity and inclusiveness thrives when we honour…perspectives of all members of our team”. It is the perfect fit.
Telus Gardens became the focal point of many messages to the public. Telus Gardens was talked about on all the major news outlets, press releases, blogs, and don’t forget occupying a whole city block of construction for two years. Telus wanted the whole city to know about the $750 million efforts they are going to in order to communicate commitment to communities.
What will companies do when communicating sustainability and environmental impact as a POD no longer enough? In sustainability marketing we talk about sustainability inevitably becoming a standard for all companies to hold themselves up to in order to remain competitive. If Bell and Shaw choose to live up to the same commitments as Telus in terms of commercial development standards and community investment, Telus will be left with no competitive advantage. This is not to say Telus should shift back to advertising its services directly, but rather it will need to focus on a different underlying company-wide investment element to capture the numerous services it offers. We can already see a preview, as Bell is currently promoting Bell Let’s Talk Day to start a conversation around mental health.
Thankfully for Telus, the corporate concern for sustainability is only now just being addressed. But, it should be aware that if the sustainability trend continues it will no longer set themselves apart from the competition.
I guess that part of the danger of being a leader, you have no carrot to chase to keep you moving. I would agree that if Telus focused more directly on the improvement of their day-to-day operations they would stand a better chance of creating a lasting competitive advantage. This focus on the day-to-day would provide the incentive to keep innovating as the improvements would likely directly affect their bottom line, and would be more easily aligned with their company values in a way customers can believe.
I agree that as more companies begin to move into the world of sustainability, it becomes more difficult to differentiate based on that fact alone. I think in the future we are going to see companies begin trying to “one-up” eachother in sustainability in the same way that they have done with their products in the past. Similar to the way in which Samsung and Apple release one phone after the other, constantly trying to out-do the other, I think we’re going to see companies competing to be the most sustainable. It is no longer good enough to say “We are sustainable”. Companies have to prove that they are more sustainable than the competition.
Fun fact about this building it was financed by issuing bonds, more specifically green bonds. I think it really smart that Telus chose to do this, I mean I sure the reasons are twofold: 1) it quite an expensive building to finance, but more importantly, 2) is that by issuing these bonds they issued a type of security that really attracts a niche type of investor. This is when sustainability is not only good for the planet but good for business. This issue of $225 million the first time a green bond was used to support a real estate financing and it was one of only 2 green bonds issued in 2015. To be clear the capital raised was used to retire construction financing taken on to build TELUS Garden in Vancouver. This is really a win-win for Telus because they were able to get a swanky new building but also issue a security that is low in supply but definitely has demand.
More about the issue if you are interested: http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/tag/blog.html?b=business.financialpost.com/m/news/fp-street/ontario-set-to-issue-green-bonds-in-second-issue-seeks-a-minimum-of-500-million