Toronto City Council has committed to implementing an Energy Reporting and Benchmarking Policy for large buildings.

Energy reporting and benchmarking is high on the list of strategies to reduce urban emissions, as 37 per cent of Toronto’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come from large buildings.

Toronto is giving the province until December 31, 2015 to adopt an Ontario-wide policy. If the province declines, the city is ready to implement its own by-law and implementation plan for Toronto (in the works since 2014).

According to the City, Energy Reporting and Benchmarking (ERB) facilitates the review of a building’s energy use against its own past performance, and the performance of similar buildings.

The two main components of a potential ERB initiative would be:

 

• Reporting and benchmarking: Owners of affected buildings could be required to report building characteristic and resource utilization data to the Province or City in a prescribed format; and
• Disclosure: Benchmarking results could be disclosed on an annual basis. The extent of disclosure could vary – from limited disclosure, to full disclosure of a building's energy intensity rating on a public website.