About climate change
 

Climate change is a significant threat and emergency that must be addressed. Local and national governments need to respond immediately to help make lasting and impactful changes. Vaughan, like all other communities, has the responsibility to lower its emissions.
 

The final draft of Vaughan's 2024 Municipal Energy Plan is now complete. Council endorsement of the plan is pending.

Once approved, the City’s revised Municipal Energy Plan will:

Green Buildings are key to urban environmental sustainability through establishing a sustainable built form. The City of Vaughan continues to set the bar high for construction of green buildings with the adoption of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), an internationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high-performance green buildings.

In 2009, the Green Energy Act and its regulation, Ontario Regulation (O. Reg.) 397/11, required broader public sector (BPS) organizations in Ontario, including municipalities, to publicly report on energy consumption and associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions annually. The regulation also requires publishing and implementing five-year energy conservation and demand management plans (energy management plans) related to the assets and operations of the organization.

Climate Change and COVID-19

Grow Zones

In taking the Mayors’ Monarch Pledge, the City committed to identifying opportunities for revised mowing programs and planting pollinator-friendly plants. Vaughan has embarked in identifying Grow Zones which will be left as natural enhancement areas. Natural enhancement areas will not be mowed but left with tall grass and plants. The City will continue to identify priority Grow Zone sites and are developing signs to promote this initiative.

Benefits of Grow Zones:

The City of Vaughan protects our water supplies by implementing the Credit Valley, Toronto and Region and Central Lake Ontario (CTC) Source Protection Plan (Plan). The Plan was created following the Walkerton incident of 2000, that contaminated the drinking water of the community’s municipal well.

The NHN is represented on Schedule 2 of the Vaughan Official Plan (VOP 2010).

Agriculture in Vaughan

Yes! There is Agriculture in Vaughan. A York Region 2021 Census Release Report on agriculture revealed that there was 51 farms and 7,862 acres of farmland (including prime agriculture) in Vaughan.