Almost all of our development is incompatible with reducing carbon emissions and mitigating climate change. This is because most of our development involves demolishing buildings and constructing new ones from scratch. People who consider themselves progressives, concerned about climate change, counter-intuitively go along with the massive increase in emissions that come with new development, inadvertently supporting increased developer profits and the politicians it buys.
Toronto likes to pat itself on the back for its emissions reductions but there are some serious flaws to Toronto’s emissions counts. These “flaws” are really conscious omissions, a bit of subterfuge to create the illusion of action while more or less continuing development as usual. The city is trying to pull the wool over our eyes, to make us think we have made real strides in reducing carbon emissions, all so people do not look closer at what is actually happening.
- Omitting Development Emissions
- Inaccurate Transportation Emissions
- Reducing Emissions to Past Levels
- Net-Zero
- Ignoring Embodied Carbon
- The Truth About Development Emissions
- Other Environmental Impacts
Omitting Development Emissions
Toronto excludes almost all emissions from development in counting GHG (greenhouse gas). Our GHG inventory does not even have a development/construction category, it is only buildings, transportation, and waste. They even admit the limitation of their transportation counts, “Identifying emissions sources from all transportation modes continues to be a methodological challenge. Due to the number of different authorities and private businesses that may contribute to transportation emissions, as well as the varying levels of voluntary, sometimes proprietary versus regulated reporting, this section of the inventory presents the best data available at time of collection.”
Not to mention the variety of other emissions not included, “Currently, lifecycle emissions from the products and services consumed by residents, businesses and institutions in Toronto are not included in this inventory. Work to define and calculate these emissions is planned for 2022.” By their own admission, their counts are not remotely reflective of reality.
Inaccurate Transportation Emissions
To calculate transportation emissions they are using a model built from traffic counts, which automatically means it is full of assumptions and quite likely deviates from reality (highly doubtful that it accurately accounts for transportation emissions at night). Their model only accounts for vehicles on the road, and so vehicles on construction sites, especially ones that are not driven on the road (like various diggers and excavators and cranes) are not captured at all, and neither are the lifecycle emissions of all the new materials required to build anew. Excluding development from GHG counts is the only way Toronto can claim the emissions reductions it does.
Reducing Emissions to Past Levels
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions to past levels is a sneaky lie, because they leave out that it is not reducing total greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to previous levels, it is building new stuff and retrofitting old stuff so FUTURE emissions are reduced, all the while adding more and more to the atmosphere to supposedly reach that goal.
Net-Zero
“Net zero” is a smoke screen, it is the illusion of reducing emissions to allow development to continue full speed ahead. Because in reality, aiming for net zero is only about future emissions, it completely leaves out all the emissions required to get to net zero. “Net zero” will not mean much if climate change is accelerated by adding millions of tonnes of new emissions to achieve it.
A “net zero home” doesn’t mean the emissions from building it are canceled out, only that it consumes less after construction. Also “net zero home” can be labelled even if it does not fully qualify “The CHBA Net Zero Home Labelling Program has been designed so that a home could still qualify for Net Zero Ready, R-2000, or ENERGY STAR® if Net Zero is not achievable.” So it seems “net zero” is just another buzz word to maintain the illusion we are in fact achieving a net zero economy.
Ignoring Embodied Carbon
The lifecycle emissions of building materials, also called “embodied carbon” (“Carbon emissions associated with materials and construction processes throughout the whole life cycle of a building or infrastructure… This includes emissions from raw material extraction, transportation of raw materials to a factory, manufacturing of building materials at the factory, transportation of building materials to the building site, building construction, and demolition.”), are not currently measured in our GHG, we only measure the operational emissions of buildings.
The latest Transform TO document only mentions “embodied emissions” once, and “lifecycle” as something to aspire to but not current practice. Toronto requires whole building life cycle assessments for city-owned buildings, but it becomes optional for private developments where incentives for compliance are offered. As long as these and other carbon-reduction measures are voluntary, we are not ensuring new developments are as carbon-reduced as possible.
Transform TO is well-meaning on the surface, but it is mostly business as usual and the bare minimum standard. These measures should not be voluntary but should be mandatory for all existing and new developments, and every corporate landlord should be required to retrofit.
The Truth About Development Emissions
The reality of carbon emissions and development according to Buro Happold and C40 Cities is that, “Construction alone (excluding the operations of buildings) currently contributes over 23% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and more than 30% of global resource extraction and use. Failure to reduce the impact of construction in our cities poses a serious risk to the environment.”
Considering Toronto has had the most cranes in the air for the last decade, how much higher are those percentages for our city? There are some excellent recommendations as well, especially to “Conduct end of life demolition assessments to encourage renovation, reuse and adaptive use of buildings as an alternative to demolition” and to “Carry out whole life embodied carbon assessments to drive design and planning decisions before construction begins”.
Other Environmental Impacts
The impacts of development go beyond emissions. Not only does adding increased emissions accelerate climate change, the addition of density is making it harder for us to adapt and withstand the effects of climate change.
Increased density has worsened our ability to absorb stormwater flooding, contributes to our increasing heat island, and causes a loss of tree canopy, but such concerns are brushed aside.
As another example of exclusions, Toronto “has decided that the Dust Control by-law will not apply to municipal works, construction occurring on commercial and industrial properties nor will it apply to the construction of a multi-residential building, subdivision, or mixed-use development”. Also, “Exclude hazardous waste, land-clearing debris, soil, and landscaping materials from calculations”.
The current development-at-any-cost policies are contributing massively to new carbon emissions and other environmental impacts, all while the city conveniently leaves those factors out when measuring our GHG. This is irresponsible at best, and straight up dishonesty at worst.