The Toronto 2030 District is a private-public initiative committed to achieving a low-carbon future. We are a broad stakeholder network comprised of property owners and managers, tenants, utilities, government, service providers and civil society within downtown Toronto. Our focus is on reducing operational greenhouse gas emissions from buildings.
The Toronto 2030 District encompasses over 300 million square feet of office, commercial, residential, institutional, and industrial space. The District aims to accelerate the pace of change by recognizing that different buildings have different solutions and that community infrastructure has a large part to play in getting to the solution.
To achieve this, the District acts as a learning and knowledge sharing resource aimed at identifying the individual and collaborative opportunities for most effective action. It also seeks context-based solutions that help property owners and managers realize a competitive advantage in cost, resilience, and reputation.
The Toronto 2030 District developed the Toronto 2030 Platform in 2019 to help monitor progress towards the decarbonization targets. It displays energy use, water consumption and related transportation emissions data for the District by building type and block. It also provides simplified tools to help users connect to conservation programs, join the District as partners, and share building performance data. The Toronto 2030 Platform was designed to be replicable in communities of all sizes, and with it we will continue to develop new insights into building performance in the Toronto 2030 District.
The Toronto 2030 District is part of a member network of 22 Districts in cities across North America working to achieve the Architecture 2030 Challenge and meet the Paris Climate Agreement targets.
Our Pathways Project
The Toronto 2030 District is in the process of developing our Pathways Project which consists of research and engagement activities to define viable pathways to achieving a zero-carbon District by 2050. The outcomes are intended to be an informed stakeholder community that is better able to design their own decarbonization roadmaps and a set of pilot projects that will test leading edge approaches to collaborative solutions and inspire individual action.
- Phase 0 – Completed Pathways to Net Zero Background Working Paper
- Phase 1 – Completed Heating Energy Supply Decarbonization Report (Fuel Switching)
- Phase 2 – Energy Efficiency
- Phase 3 – Integrated Pathways to Decarbonization
- Phase 4/5 – community-directed, district-supported pilot projects, and reporting lessons learned (In Progress)
What’s Next
- Engage The District Stakeholders – stay tuned for upcoming events that explore sector-specific solutions to reaching our climate change targets.
- Develop Pilot Projects – we will work with our partners to identify and implement viable pilot projects to test solutions and educate stakeholders.
- Enhance Our Data – The District aims to update the utility information from 2019. We also are working to engage property owners in supplying their actual utility consumption data. This will increase the granular accuracy of the Platform allow us to refine the modelling done for the District Platform to . The intent is to provide stakeholders with an up-to-date energy and carbon profile to encourage and optimize carbon mitigation measures.
Our Goals
- Existing buildings:
- Reduce building-related GHG emissions in alignment with Canada’s national commitments
- New construction:
- Net zero buildings by 2030
