The Living City Report Card-An Assessment of the Environmental Health of the Greater Toronto Area 

Carbon emissions, air and water quality, waste management, land use and biodiversity are the environmental measures of a flourishing living city. This report card captures their state of health across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

The Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance’s (CivicAction’s) Greening Greater Toronto initiative and Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) have collaborated to produce this independent analysis, which builds on Greening Greater Toronto’s 2008 environmental report, and on TRCA’s watershed report cards. The 2011 edition is the next in a series of periodic assessments of our region’s environmental performance that gives us a yardstick to check against and delivers an ongoing call to action.

The Living City® Report Card and its companion Scorecard are the work of many experts, including in-kind contributors from The Boston Consulting Group. It delivers a unique analysis of the drivers that influence the GTA’s environmental performance, assesses where we’re making progress, sets out short and long-term targets, and assigns grades by rating current environmental conditions against the longterm targets. It goes on to identify opportunities for action by GTA leaders, organizations and residents.

So how are we doing? We’re doing well in some areas: breathing cleaner air, using less water, and diverting more waste from landfill since our previous reports. We’re doing poorly in others: managing commercial waste and stormwater, and controlling sprawl and traffic congestion.

Some of our recent improvements can be traced back to reduced economic activity during the recession. When the economy recovers, we risk losing some of our environmental gains. Our region’s challenge is to collectively seize the opportunities we have through our growth while protecting the health of our people, our natural systems and the region’s long-term economic, social and environmental sustainability.