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.

Resources for Residents

Find out how much heat your home is losing

City of Vaughan has declared a climate emergency
 

On June 4, 2019, Mayor and Members of Council unanimously passed a Members’ Resolution to declare a climate emergency in the City of Vaughan, after a deputation by students from Thornhill Woods Public School. Members of the school’s EcoCommittee first delivered a presentation about the impacts of climate change, and then requested Mayor and Council to declare a climate emergency.

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).