OECD Metropolitan Review of Sustainability in Toronto

I recently had the pleasure of joining a team from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), headquartered in Paris, for the purposes of conducting an invited assessment of metropolitan Toronto's economic and sustainable development strategies.  The team, made up of a stellar group of people from the US, Mexico, Japan, the Netherlands, France, and Italy, consisted mainly of professional and academic economists. Although everyone on the team had at least some familiarity with the idea of smart growth and sustainability, I was explicitly asked to focus on the sustainable development aspects of Toronto's efforts to become a global city. 

The team spent a full five days meeting with metropolitan Toronto municipal, provincial, and national government officials, as well as nonprofit leaders and representatives from the business community.  The team is now in the process of preparing a final report that is planned for some time in December. 

I was truly impressed with what Toronto and its surrounding cities have accomplished in terms of trying to become more sustainable.  Toronto is a large city (2.5 million people) in a metropolitan area of about 5 million, with several surrounding cities of 700,000 people or more.  These cities face similar challenges as other cities in North America as they try to find ways of managing growth without damaging the environment, including precipitous increases in the volume of traffic. Despite this, some of Toronto's programs include a very aggressive effort to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon, its long-term commitment to transit oriented housing and urban villages, and many others.  (See the separate posting on Toronto's collaborative effort with ZeroFootprint)  The city is embarking on Mayor Miller's "Tower Renewal Project" to upgrade the energy efficiency of the hundreds of highrise residential buildings in the city.  The city runs a "district cooling system" that uses cold water from deep in lack Ontario to cool downtown office buildings, including city hall.  I could go on and on and on, but when the OECD report comes out in December, it should contain a comprehensive review of what the city and region are doing to try to become more sustainable.

What is your sense of Toronto's sustainability efforts?  How does it stack up against other Canadian cities that are committed to sustainability, especially Vancouver?  I'd love to hear from you about what Toronto does well and what it needs to improve on.