1.6K 
Throughout April UrbanToronto is featuring a special State of Environment editorial series to explore critical sustainability issues across our region.
* * *
The Toronto Green Standard (TGS) is Toronto’s sustainable design requirements for new private and City-owned developments, which consist of tiers of performance measures with supporting guidelines that promote sustainable site and building design, encourage sustainable design through incentives.
In place since 2009, the TGS addresses city environmental priorities such as improving air quality and reducing the urban heat island effect, reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from new buildings, reducing storm water runoff, protecting and enhancing ecological functions, decreasing building-related bird collisions and diverting household and construction waste from going to landfill sites.
The TGS includes minimum requirements for new buildings as well as a Development Charge incentive stream and more than 4,000 developments have met those requirements, and an average of 13 per cent of residential development applications have participated in the incentive program. By the end of 2025, 125 high performance new developments have been certified through the incentive stream and 26 City-led Net Zero emissions developments are under construction.
“The Toronto Green Standard was adopted to encourage more sustainable development in the city as a response to concerns about future weather and the need to be resilient,” says the City of Toronto’s Shayna Stott, Senior Planner, Environmental Planning, City Planning division. “The drivers behind adopting TGS are even more relevant today with the city facing increasing number of extreme heat days each summer, intense rainfall and flooding, and the need to reduce energy bills and consumption through more energy efficient buildings.”
As Toronto finally emerges from a relentless and brutal winter, it’s easy to forget those intense summer heatwaves when TV reporters fry eggs on the pavement or the heat bends railroad tracks.
“Torontonians remember when we have a heat warning as early as May or as late as October, as the number of extreme heat days over 30C has already increased compared to the 1980s,” says Stott. “By the end of the century extreme heat days are projected to increase even further with an additional two months of sweltering temperatures each year. Extreme heat is just one of the many interconnected risks Toronto will face due to climate change including health impacts, infrastructure disruptions due to flooding and strains on emergency and municipal services.”
The City has received positive feedback from developers, architects and landscape architects as the TGS has been a successful market transformation tool by raising the minimum standard development to have less impact on the environment. Green roofs, bird-friendly glass, soil cells to protect trees while supporting infrastructure and energy modelling are now seen regularly in new developments due to the TGS.
“The TGS has brought consistency and predictability to sustainability requirements for developments across Toronto,” says Stott. “Developers who are building to the higher performance levels of TGS can receive a refund on development charges, and architects and landscape architects appreciate having the specifics of the sustainable performance measures outlined in a way that’s easy to apply. This supports better design decision-making at the beginning of projects where it is the most cost effective to address sustainability.”
Of course, the City of Toronto is impacted by any new legislation introduced by the province. City staff are currently reviewing the proposed legislation, Building Homes and Improving Transportation Infrastructure Act, which was introduced March 30th, for its potential impact. Additionally, Bill 60, formerly Bill 17, Ontario Getting Homes and Infrastructure Built Faster and Smarter, provincial legislation was advanced by the Ford government in 2025, aiming to reduce red tape and speed up housing construction. The Ontario government sought to reduce the power of municipal green standards, and in particular viewed the TGS as a constraint on housing construction. However, according to officials at City Planning, it did not change the City’s ability to apply the TGS to new developments.
April is a migration month for birds returning north from the south and another key part of Toronto’s overall sustainability in urban planning is its Bird Friendly Development Guidelines, developed in 2007. The city was the first jurisdiction in North America to develop bird-safe building guidelines and to require new buildings to be designed to reduce bird deaths due to collision with windows. Proudly, this is a made-in-Toronto success story as the guidelines have been adopted elsewhere and have spurred innovation among glass manufacturers to bring to market a range of bird-friendly glass products available across North America.
“These guidelines have evolved into development standards applied to all new buildings through the TGS,” says Stott. “To address the impact of nighttime light on migrating birds, the TGS requires all exterior lighting fixtures for new developments to be Dark Sky compliant and that rooftop and exterior façade lighting must be directed downward and turned off between 10 pm and 6 am. Our Lights Out Program reminds building owners to turn off their lights during spring and fall migratory seasons and we undertake a social media campaign to raise awareness. Our hope is that more buildings will join in and turn off lights at night when not in use.” We will look more deeply into the Bird Friendly Development Guidelines is an upcoming story.
As our planet faces growing environmental pressures, the city is doing its part with the Toronto Green Standard and other initiatives providing a pathway to more sustainable urban planning.
* * *
UrbanToronto’s new data research service, UrbanToronto Pro, offers comprehensive information on construction projects in the Greater Toronto Area—from proposal right through to completion stages. In addition, our subscription newsletter, New Development Insider, drops in your mailbox daily to help you track projects through the planning process.
* * *
Thank you to the companies joining UrbanToronto to celebrate State of Environnent Month.
