At the inaugural Ecocity Standards workshop held in Vancouver in 2010, local government, community leaders, and industry experts helped develop initial content for the standards as well as the framework that organizes them.

This was shared with an international audience at the 2011 Ecocity World Summit in Montreal.

In 2012, workshop participants reconvened in Vancouver to share progress, engage feedback, and further refine the International Ecocity Standards prior to their debut at the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro (Rio+20).

Staff from the City of Vancouver helped assess the measurability of each standard, and academic as well as industry experts and local government staff from across the lower mainland probed the content and suggested improvements.

At the Ecocity Focus Lab in Vancouver in November 2016, headline indicators were further refined, and its findings shared at the Ecocity World Summit 2017 in Melbourne, Australia. At the upcoming Ecocity World Summit 2019 in Vancouver, B.C., the entire conference structure will be based on the Ecocity Framework & Standards.