We embed energy conservation and sustainability best practices into all Black & McDonald business activities, where we apply solutions to everyday projects, operations, and facilities of our customers.

Our Team and Integrated Approach

Our team of experienced sustainability and energy professionals, engineers, smart technology experts and asset managers provide and implement a full suite of solutions to drive decarbonization and create a low carbon future for industrial, commercial, and institutional facilities under our care across North America.

As part of our integrated approach, we assess key factors such as energy and resource consumption, asset performance, and waste production trends, to provide our clients with customized solutions that reduce long-term costs and environmental impacts.

Our turnkey approach encompasses a full suite of recommendations from selecting right-fit solutions to project management, installation and end-user engagement.

Our services support all aspects of smarter, more sustainable environments.

Energy Services

Sustainable energy is not only important for our environment, but it is also critical to create long-term business success. Our energy services solutions will provide you with innovative tools and strategies to mitigate rising energy costs by finding and eliminating energy waste, and measuring and tracking where and how energy is being used across your facilities.

Our dashboard solution utilizes data, trend analysis and predictive modelling to evaluate your energy consumption and provide insights that help you achieve your sustainability goals.

Our team delivers professional services to clients and facilities across North America:

• Energy Audits & Recommissioning
• Real-time Energy Intelligence – Monitoring, Reporting and Dashboards
• Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Reporting
• Energy Modelling & Planning
• P3 Energy Performance Management

Decarbonization and Electrification

Now more than ever, we must take action and develop clear plans to reduce GHG emissions from our buildings, transportation systems and our grid – the main drivers of our collective carbon impact.

The Energy Services & Sustainability (ESS) Team recognizes that no path will look the same depending on the fuel mix of your grid, the operations of your facilities and the mandates and metrics you are working towards. Our expertise in developing your path to net-zero will ensure we take a measured approach to maximizing opportunities found in operational efficiency, leveraging our industry partnerships for best-in-class low-carbon technologies and utilizing all available funding and incentives.

ESS adopts a holistic approach to develop turnkey solutions for our customers in their path to zero-carbon and net-zero emissions, including:

• Zero-Carbon and Net-Zero Carbon Buildings – Planning, Implementation & Performance Monitoring
• Electric Vehicle Charging Station (EVCs) Infrastructure
• Distributed Energy Resources (DERs)
• Energy Storage/ Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS)
• Funding & Incentive Applications
• Renewable Energy

Healthy Buildings and IAQ

The COVID-19 pandemic brought air quality issues to the forefront. In North America, people spend more than 90 per cent of their time indoors. The quality of air that we inhale at home, in the workplace, businesses, school, etc., directly impacts our health and quality of life.

ESS can provide your indoor spaces with solutions to monitor and enhance the quality of air across breathable zones and the entire facility. Recommissioning is a great first step in determining if air moving systems meet the current ASHRAE requirements for fresh air in your space and allows us to create a baseline of indoor air quality (IAQ) performance.

Our IAQ solutions include:

• IAQ Assessments and Reporting
• IAQ Monitoring and Reporting
• Building Certification Support (LEED, WELL, BOMA, ESPM)
• Recommissioning

Lifecycle Asset Management

Sustainable Lifecycle Asset Management presents an opportunity, not just to inform the capital planning process, but to capture the long-term impacts of each asset in terms of GHG emissions from operations and decreased operational efficiency over time. Taking this dynamic approach allows us to consider the interactive impacts of each asset’s performance, and potential funding timelines for upgrades overlaid with cost impacts of decreased efficiency. As well, we consider future carbon tax implications of increased energy consumption of these poorly performing assets.

With the growing need for decarbonization and operational cost reduction, ESS can provide a number of services that support sustainable lifecycle management and capital planning.

Our Sustainable Lifecycle Asset Management solutions include:

• Building Condition Assessments
• Enhanced Building Condition Assessments: Carbon & Energy Impacts of Assets
• Capital Planning
• Utility Budgeting and Forecasting

Controls, IoT and Smart Technologies

Smarter environments will be enabled by structures with sensor networks that can monitor electricity and water usage in real time, track sustainability performance, and anticipate changes in a dynamic grid. With the global adoption of cloud-based computing, as well as the Internet of things (IoT) approach to facilities’ data, the way we interact/integrate with assets has evolved considerably. Building automation systems (BAS) and smart building technologies have become key stakeholders for facilities – allowing real-time measurement, fault detection & diagnostics (FDD), and precise operational functionality for end users.

Our solution offers you a single-pane solution that enables you to view all utilities invoices, sub-metering & tenant usage, BAS data, and sustainability metrics in an all-in-one platform. It is simple and easy to access, providing you with customized dashboards, analytics and reporting tools to enable your path to zero-carbon operations.

Our consultative approach can offer a range of support, from entry-level assessment of control systems and smart technologies, to full retrofit analysis and implementation;

• Site Specific System Design: BAS & Metering
• Installation & Commissioning
• System Integration
• Local & Remote Support of BAS
• Building Optimization & Analytics
• Living Lab Strategies
• Integrated & Customized Dashboards