E-BLAST: The Toronto Atmospheric Fund: Helping the GTHA Reach Net Zero by 2040
- dariamancino4
- Jul 18, 2024
- 5 min read
Tuesday’s massive storm saw more rain fall in three hours than usually falls in the entire month of July. These are referred to as “100-year storms” because historically, they’ve had a 1% chance of happening in any given year. These days it’s a much different story—Toronto has weathered three such storms in just over 10 years. I know many of you are still dealing with the effects of this week’s downpour in your homes. I am too—it hit the Carroll household, despite our back flow valve and other flood-mitigation measures.
There is no denying that these extreme weather events are happening much more frequently and with much greater intensity than in the past, and this is a direct result of climate change. Work to adapt our infrastructure and reduce our emissions is absolutely essential, not only to keep our city liveable for future generations but to keep it liveable now.
There is a lot of environmental work underway to mitigate the impacts of climate change and get our carbon emissions to Net Zero by 2040. Our climate change strategy, known as TransformTO, spans almost every Committee of Council, allowing every Councillor to engage with environmental work in a number of ways.
In addition to the work happening at Council and in Committees, I sit on the Board of Directors of the Toronto Atmospheric Fund (TAF). This is a very effective organization that is uniquely positioned to have maximum impact environmental across sectors. TAF’s is unique because all of its operations are funded by an endowment fund rather than the City’s tax dollars. TAF uses that endowment in two ways: First, it makes financial investments into green companies and projects, serving the dual purpose of supporting green innovation and generating returns that continue supporting TAF’s work. Second, it offers grants and programs to help scale low-carbon solutions across the Greater Toronto & Hamilton Area. This is smart, cutting-edge work that is instrumental in helping us reach our Net Zero target on time.
I want to highlight a local project that TAF has partnered on here in Don Valley North. TAF has partnered with Toronto Community Housing (TCHC) to complete a deep, multi-measure retrofit at Field Sparroway and Tree Sparroway, a townhouse complex in our ward that is home to about 175 families. The project kicked off earlier this month, and targets a 50% reduction in energy and carbon emissions.
Construction is now underway to install efficient heat pumps, baseboards and smart controls, better ventilation, new LED lighting, and water-saving measures. A second phase will convert the current gas-powered water heating to electric, and will eliminate gas combustion from the complex.
This project is the perfect example of the myriad of benefits that result from environmentally focused projects. At the hyper-local level, this retrofit will help safeguard Sparroways residents from Toronto’s increasingly extreme summer heat, and make indoor living environments healthier and more comfortable for families year-round. For our city, the retrofit is expected to save over $5 million in utility costs for TCHC over 20 years. The project will also create local employment opportunities—TAF is partnering with Building UP, a non-profit social purpose builder and TAF partner, to ensure our local workforce is engaged in the project.
TAF-led retrofits are also a way we can lead by example. We engage in these retrofits on City properties to demonstrate their effectiveness to private landlords. Owners of multi-residential buildings across the City could be saving money and helping the environment at the same time, and we want to show that TAF and the City have the expertise to help them do it. The City has programs like the High-Res Retrofit Improvement Support Program (Hi-RIS), which makes low-cost financing available for owners of apartment buildings constructed before 1990 who are looking to make improvements that reduce energy and water consumption. The more examples we can point to of just how effective and financially-savvy these projects are, the more uptake we’ll see.
And of course, projects like the one currently underway at the Sparroways help our planet by reducing energy use and carbon emissions. It really is a win at every level.
Building retrofits are just one example of the important work that TAF is engaged in. TAF was an early supporter of electric vehicles, investing in the start-up that developed the first plug-in hybrid battery for personal vehicles. Now, the roads are full of electric vehicles (EVs) and the Federal government is partnering with TAF to build charging stations across the GTHA. Each time the Federal government contributes to TAF’s EV Station Fund, TAF moves quickly to take applications for new stations. If you are an owner or board member of a multi-residential building without EV charging capacity, I highly encourage you to look into this fund. You can receive rebates of up to 50% of your EV charging station installation cost. You can learn more about this great program at the link below:
While I could fill pages with all the great work TAF is doing, I want to end off by highlighting one last project. TAF has made a very strategic $1.25 million investment in Assembly Corp, a growing Toronto-based company that creates modular, prefabricated mass timber housing. Assembly’s development process looks a lot like building Lego. The easiest way to explain it is to show you:
Assembly Corp builds these standardized parts in a factory and then assembles them onsite. This can achieve as much as a 60% reduction in construction time compared to traditional methods. Assembly Corp projects also integrate several environmental practices, including geothermal heating and cooling, smart thermostats, and other “passive house” design principles that make buildings more energy efficient. Their projects are also affordable for non-profit housing providers, with a focus on midrise developments, infill housing, and laneway housing, all of which are in high demand.
This partnership with Assembly Corp is another way for TAF to lead by example. Prefabricated mass timber is a relatively new construction method, and requires new expertise from professionals in design, construction, and manufacturing. TAF and Assembly Corp share a commitment to developing these much-needed skills in the market—Assembly Corp by sharing key learnings and best practices, and TAF by investing in companies and projects that share knowledge across the sector.
The Toronto Atmospheric Fund started all the way back in 1991. Toronto Councillors Tony O’Donohue, Dan Leckie, and Jack Layton led Toronto City Council to establish the Toronto Atmospheric Fund with a $23 million endowment. The endowment came from the proceeds of a sale of rural lands that could no longer be used for future landfills. Now, 33 years later, it’s amazing to see just how far TAF has come.
The endowment has been so successful in investing in energy saving projects, building retrofits, and environmental innovations that, after watching its success for 25 years, both the Provincial and Federal governments have added to the endowment, allowing TAF’s work to spread beyond the City of Toronto.
Here in our city, I used to track how much TAF projects were saving in the City budget. Whether it was an HVAC retrofit, a solar neighbourhood pilot, or a renewable energy installation, I would make note of the financial benefits and offsets. I remember getting to $55 million in utility cost savings each year alone, and then I lost count. There are more savings found and more progress made every year, and not a minute too soon. These investments don’t just solve pressing present-day challenges, though they’re great at that. They’re true investments in our city’s future. Much like Councillors did back in 1991, I can only dream of how far TAF will go in the next 30 years.