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Toronto's Shane Baghai is a member of a rarefied group of builders known for immensely luxurious condominium and townhouse communities of marble and sparkle. But Mr. Baghai, a well-travelled architecture and design aficionado, would also like to be known for his passionate embrace of green technology and environmentally sustainable building practices.

He began to deconstruct the human impact on environment 35 years ago as a mechanical engineering student in London, where he wrote an idealistic undergraduate degree thesis on the effect of automobiles on urban environments, concluding that little good would come of it if the car continued to dominate the road.

Mr. Baghai isn't the only builder turning green. Green buildings have hit the condominium market full force this year, with 16 currently on the market and more to come.

The most accepted standard for measuring environmentally beneficial high-rise design is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating (LEED) devised in 2004. Of course, the stampede toward green building has been driven in part by spiking energy prices and increasingly uncertain supplies.

The latest in green design trends and energy-efficient technology will be on exhibition at the Green Building Festival to be held Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 at the CBC Broadcasting Centre in downtown Toronto.

"If I were a politician, I would be screaming about the use of more landfills and the damage it does," Mr. Baghai says. The virtues of composting are so undeniable, he added, that it can produce everything from artificial fire logs to methane gas for home heating.

Nearly every mechanical function of Mr. Baghai's current development, St. Gabriel Village, on Sheppard Avenue East (between Bayview and Leslie avenues) in North York, has been broken down, re-examined and redesigned to increase energy efficiency and leave a soft footprint on the planet.

"I thought that environmental technology were things that only younger people were interested in," he said, noting that the price range at St. Gabriel -- between the high $400,000s and $2.2-million -- did not reach out to that market. The average age of St. Gabriel buyers is 69, and most are downsizing from detached homes in the vicinity, semi-retired or spend part of the year outside Canada.

"They were thinking of their own children," Mr. Baghai says.

The project, comprised of two condominium mid-rises and 23 three-storey townhouses, will feature a combination of wind, solar and hybrid power generation that will enable the community to reduce its consumption of electricity drawn from the standard power grid. This includes a series of batteries to store power in the event of a grid failure.

Construction will begin as soon as new zoning regulations for the area are passed. About 75 per cent of the condominiums and 60 per cent of the townhouses have already been sold.

Mr. Baghai is hoping to convince government officials to alter the Building Code to allow sensors in stairwells and parking garages to turn on energy-efficient LED lights only when needed, rather than keeping them on all the time. "The archaic technology of the past is what we want to avoid."

Tridel has also jumped into LEED-rated construction, beginning with its highly touted Verve tower-and-loft project at Wellesley Street, east of Jarvis Street, last year, with prices ranging from $291,000 to $598,000. The 39-storey tower now under construction is very close to being sold out, with over 90 per cent of suites spoken for, but the six-storey loft project was only released last month and still has a good range of two- and three-storey units available.

"Consumers understand that with a green building, their operating costs are going to be lower," said Jim Ritchie, Tridel's senior vice-president of sales and marketing. "There is a premium involved in building them, but the more products that are built, construction will become more affordable."

Consumers have offered a lot of positive feedback on the environmental-health aspects of Verve and similar buildings. Tridel's Renaissance in Richmond Hill features an energy-recovery ventilator that allows residents to control how much outside air is used to ventilate their suite, irritant-free laminates and finishes and safer paints using organic compounds. Tridel was rewarded this year with the Green Toronto Energy Conservation Award, and Mr. Ritchie indicated that the company wants a LEED rating to be a de facto part of future high-rise launches.

Mr. Baghai is also keen to up the ante on eco-friendly design in his coming projects. He is planning to launch a third phase at St. Gabriel in the spring -- featuring two- and three-storey lofts -- as well as a more affordable condominium project at Yonge Street and Avondale Avenue, with which he wants to include a six-month TTC pass for new buyers to get them in the habit of using the subway.

In 2009, he is planning to build an active seniors' rental building on the St. Gabriel site featuring cogeneration heating systems -- the use of exhaust waste to provide hot water for the entire community.

draymaker@globeandmail.com