Climate Change

Electric Vehicle Charging Stations 

Our city is actively making electric vehicles more convenient for our residents, visitors, and businesses in Kingston. Adopting this eco-friendly alternative to traditional cars will help lower our collective carbon footprint. 

Find the nearest EV parking for: 

• • On-Street Parking
  • Parking Lots and Garages

Electric Vehicle Charging Stations 

Our city is actively making electric vehicles more convenient for our residents, visitors, and businesses in Kingston. Adopting this eco-friendly alternative to traditional cars will help lower our collective carbon footprint. 

Find the nearest EV parking for: 

• • On-Street Parking
  • Parking Lots and Garages

Green Buildings

Our City requires new buildings and homes in Kingston to meet Ontario Building Code energy efficiency standards.  

While we cannot mandate standards beyond the Ontario Building Code, we promote improved standards like ENERGY STAR, EnerGuide, or LEED. These voluntary green building systems emphasize energy efficiency and sustainability. Builders can use our Green Checklists to guide projects and consider overall sustainability. 

We also actively encourage energy-efficient and sustainable designs for large buildings, and new and renovated homes. Through our Better Homes Kingston Program, we provide financial support for approved home retrofits to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

Learn more about Green Buildings.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventories 

Measuring greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is a critical part of climate action evaluation at the City. We keep track of emissions from both our community and municipal operations, and then measure those efforts over time to ensure we're on track to reach our climate leadership goals. 

We aim to reduce GHG emissions from our municipal operations by 30% by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2040. We also are working with our community to achieve carbon neutrality for community emissions by 2040. 

We report on corporate and community emissions annually. Review the latest reports:

• Community GHG Inventory Report
• Corporate GHG Inventory Report

Do you operate a business or organization? 

If your business or organization wants to reduce its carbon footprint and needs help, check out Sustainable Kingston's sustainably.eco program. Access resources and tools to measure your carbon footprint, set reduction goals and create climate action plans. 

Municipal Energy Study 

In 2015, we began an energy evaluation process with support from the Ontario Ministry of Energy, using the Ministry's Community Energy Planning framework. Through this work, we created our first Municipal Energy Study (MES). 

The MES assesses our community's energy use and generation, focusing on greenhouse gas emissions and local economic impacts. It outlines key energy objectives: 

1. 1. Alignment: Align Kingston with Provincial energy and climate strategies
   2. Planning: Integrate energy goals into urban planning
   3. Efficiency: Reduce building energy use and carbon footprint
   4. Generation & Distribution: Localize energy production and distribution
   5. Transportation: Cut transportation energy costs and carbon footprint
   6. Energy Knowledge & Community Capacity: Enhance energy awareness and community capacity

Community input shaped future energy scenarios for each objective. 

The MES highlights opportunities for carbon reduction, local economic growth, and energy affordability. These include bio-gas production, electrifying transportation, building energy efficiency, and district energy systems. We're also monitoring energy storage trends for potential infrastructure savings.  

Global Covenant of Mayors 

In March 2019, Mayor Bryan Paterson joined the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy, a coalition of city leaders worldwide dedicated to reducing greenhouse emissions, increasing resilience to climate impacts, and promoting sustainable energy access. 

Learn more about Kingston’s involvement.