Organizations are committing to sustainability, but many aren’t sure how to act. EcoAdvisors helps them realize the benefits while avoiding critical mistakes.

Being green may not be easy, but it can mean substantial payoffs to the environment and the bottom line. Many organizations recognize this but are struggling with the problem of “how to act.” Going off in the wrong direction can risk failure in meeting critical environmental and financial goals.

EcoAdvisors helps individuals, corporations, and organizations integrate sustainability into decision-making across four main sectors: voluntary, public sector, corporate sector, and investment sector. Mediaplanet recently spoke with Hari Balasubramanian, Founding Managing Partner at EcoAdvisors, to learn more about why it pays to be green and how EcoAdvisors can help.

Why should organizations integrate sustainability into their decision-making process?

The future of humanity on this planet depends upon it. If we don’t have a sustainable view of conducting business, then all of our life’s activities and humanity will not exist. We live in a finite system that we treat like an infinite system in terms of the number of resources it can provide and the amount of waste it can absorb.

How does sustainability drive business value?

Aside from enhancing reputation and responding to increased public awareness, there are unbelievable growth opportunities from a financial and economic perspective. Embedding sustainability within the organization, for example, can help with employee retention, meaning the costs associated with training new personnel go down. 

What is sustainable value?

Anything that reduces the burden we place on the planet and which supports restoration and regeneration for a net-positive environmental impact is sustainable value. It’s also about identifying synergistic opportunities where you can create economic value without eroding the underlying value creation base, which is nature and the planet.

What are some common errors companies make in trying to go green?

One is seeing sustainability as a cost item on their profit net loss statement instead of a value creation item that generates additional revenue or reduces costs and other impacts. 

Another is making sustainability an add-on rather than integrating it into the core business and operations. If you don’t integrate it, you can’t drive value because you won’t be able to see where there are trade-offs and opportunities.

Finally, people get captivated by technology, what we call the “bright shiny object syndrome.” Still, we need to understand the systems and what will influence change, and then scale demonstrated solutions rather than only looking for new, unproven silver bullet technologies. We must think about decarbonizing heavy industry and creating efficiencies in the built environment in legacy infrastructure with existing technologies. 

We know and understand sustainability, the systems that shape it, and what solutions are going to make material pathways for progress.

Why should companies work with an organization like EcoAdvisors?

We know and understand sustainability, the systems that shape it, and what solutions will make material pathways for progress. This allows us to help clarify where trade-offs may be necessary and where synergies exist to accelerate economic and sustainability progress. We’re also quick to assess flash-in-the-pan ideas that aren’t going to make it either because the sustainability gain isn’t big enough or the commercial potential isn’t viable.  Historically, we’ve been taught that there’s a fundamental trade-off between sustainability and economic growth. There are a lot of things in between that can drive both forward that we’re not scaling the potential of, and that’s where we focus.

The post EcoAdvisors Showing Organizations How to Go Green and Be Profitable appeared first on HiveInnovates.

The worst flooding in Pakistan’s history. Unprecedented wildfires in Europe. Crop failure in Africa. Flooding and drought in the United States. Greenland’s glaciers melting at an accelerated rate. These are all just the beginning of what the planet will look like.

All of the above were predicted by climate scientists, but they’re happening much faster than expected. Events are happening now that were predicted to happen a decade from now or even further into the future.

The scale and cost of these man-made disasters are virtually impossible to calculate, far exceeding the investment needed to ensure the prompt action required to mitigate the risk. However, these incalculable costs clearly emphasize the urgency of acting today.

What can we do? According to scientists, to have any hope of mitigating the impact on people and the planet, we need to keep the global rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius or less — and we’re very nearly at this threshold. It means that the world has to collectively halve its emissions by 2030 and be on the path to net zero by 2050. Can we reach these targets? Technically yes, but only if we can build and use our collective will to do so.

Thankfully, that political will is present in many of the world’s great cities. At C40 Cities (a leading global network of nearly 100 mayors of the world’s largest cities taking urgent action to tackle the climate crisis), stringent membership standards are in place that outline the level of political will required to achieve meaningful progress on the climate crisis. Nearly two-thirds of C40 members have already published climate plans and instigated actions that will help reach this global target. Last year at COP26 in Glasgow, the then Chair of C40 and the current Mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, announced that over 1,000 cities had signed on to the Cities Race to Zero campaign, pledging to meet the same high membership standards set by C40 Cities.

The majority of the world’s population today resides in cities, most of the world’s economy stems from cities, and most of the world’s greenhouse gases are emitted within cities. By addressing emissions from buildings, transportation, energy generation, and waste, mayors and the city governments they lead can make a significant difference in rapidly reducing our collective reliance on fossil fuels.

For example, Vancouver is showing how to create a path to zero emission new buildings by 2030 by developing some of North America’s most ambitious building codes.

Montreal is decarbonizing new buildings even sooner by setting a zero-emission standard for new buildings by 2025 in partnership with Hydro Quebec. The city is also working to ensure its existing municipal buildings are net zero by 2030 and all existing buildings are carbon neutral by 2040. Emissions generated in Toronto are now over 30 per cent lower than they were in 1990, despite the economic boom and population growth of the last 20 years.

Cities are also lowering emissions by focusing on the transportation sector. Expanding access to public transport and supporting densification that allows for easier walking and cycling (an idea often referred to as the “15-minute city”) are happening at pace in places as far apart as Barcelona and Buenos Aires. And there are amazing examples of cities decarbonizing their energy grids, such as Melbourne and Australia. Although Melbourne doesn’t have legal responsibility for generating electricity, it has used the convening power of the mayor and its own purchasing power to help drive a transition to clean power. There are equally impressive examples of climate leadership in places as diverse as Accra, which is leading on important work to reduce methane emissions from waste and in Shenzhen, which is close to completing the electrification of its public transport and taxi network.

There’s one element that’s common to all these examples, and that’s city governments acting with the urgency that the science on the climate crisis demands. Collectively, businesses, public institutions, and national governments need to do the same.

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Nylon 66 is a (durable) plastic that’s found in everything from car parts and food packaging to clothing and shoes. The polymer is formed with a compound called adipic acid, but producing this foundational building block has significant environmental implications.

The traditional process of producing adipic acid releases high volumes of nitrous oxide emissions, a greenhouse gas 300 times worse for the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. That’s why Khorcheska Batyrova and Anna Khusnutdinova have set out to revolutionize the global plastics market, worth nearly US$600 billion annually, through their emissions-free bio-nylon. 

Redefining sustainability through innovation 

“The world can’t stop using this polymer because it’s one of the most resilient polymers out there,” explains Batyrova, Co-Founder of the women-led start-up, OzoneBio. They’ve adapted a bio-based process that’s both simpler and much cheaper than conventional production to create an adipic acid powder with a 98 per cent conversion efficiency.

The green technology relies on low-cost treated wood waste — by-products from the pulp and paper industry — and novel, natural enzymes they call “zombie cells.” They’re now optimizing and scaling their technology and have attracted interest from multinational chemical companies and major sportswear brands.

It’s happening here and now

Innovators in the bioeconomy, like OzoneBio, are already redefining what it means to be sustainable. But if we want to achieve a net-zero future, the right supports and resources must be accessible at the right time to drive these novel solutions through a development pipeline and into the marketplace.

Canadian governments have historically excelled at supporting early-stage research. Still, if we look at Bloomberg Innovation Index, Canada is ranked 21 globally on its ability to move innovation to the marketplace. This suggests that we’ve fallen behind in commercializing much of the ground-breaking research that can contribute to building the bioeconomy and advancing the sustainable solutions of tomorrow.

Driving innovation through a united ecosystem

As Canada’s Food & Agri-Tech Engine (The Engine), Bioenterprise Canada brings more than 15 years of industry experience in the food, agri-tech, and clean-tech sectors. We work to transform cutting-edge innovations, like emissions-free bio-nylon, into commercial success stories every day, and we understand that collaboration is key to driving innovation.

So, what did Khorcheska and Anna’s path to commercialization look like? After participating in IndieBio, a green-tech accelerator in California’s Silicon Valley, the founders made a connection with two partners of The Engine, Innovacorp, where they established a strategic connection with the venture capital firm’s sector lead for Agri-tech and Bioresource technologies, and Cape Breton’s Verschuren Centre, which was key in providing much-needed lab space to operate out of. 

As Bioenterprise members, they’ve benefitted from bi-weekly business coaching support and integral introductions to organizations like Emissions Reductions Alberta, Winpak, Total Energies, and the Institute for Chemicals and Fuels from Alternative Resources. 

Bioenterprise Canada is committed to breaking down industry silos to help scaling businesses overcome common barriers to growth. Our national and international network of research institutions, academia, mentors and experts, funders and investors, government, and industry partners help small and medium-sized businesses in the bioeconomy connect, innovate, and grow.

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Biogas is created when organic matter, such as manure or food waste, breaks down in an oxygen-free environment to create a renewable source of methane. Biogas can be upgraded to RNG, which can be carbon negative and interchangeable with conventional natural gas for use in industry, transportation, or injected directly into the natural gas grid.

A recent study by CBA and Navius, Hitting Canada’s Climate Targets with Biogas & RNG, found that there’s potential for this source of bioenergy to make substantial contributions to Canada’s climate targets. However, Canada is currently only harnessing 13 per cent of its biogas resources. 

So how can Canada’s biogas and RNG industry reach its fullest potential? The study has shown that a renewable gas mandate and credits for methane abatement from landfills and agriculture can play a significant role in growing the biogas and RNG industry and achieve deep GHG reductions.

While more can be done to provide stronger signals to the industry, there are already developing policies in Canada at the federal and provincial levels that are providing a patchwork of reliable end markets for biogas and RNG. Renewable gas regulations in British Columbia and Quebec target 15 per cent and 10 per cent renewable gas in the natural gas grids by 2030, respectively. There are offset systems federally and provincially, both published and in the draft, that target methane emissions from landfill and agriculture.

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The Standards Council of Canada works with both government and industry to advance new technologies and strengthen their value chain by leveraging the standardization network. CEO Chantal Guay tells us how it can help grow Canada’s bioeconomy.

Why are standards important to building Canada’s bioeconomy?

A country can have the most abundant bio-resources and innovative technologies, but other elements are essential to ensure global success for its bioeconomy. Regulation and government policies that enable innovation; a strong, reliable supply chain; and an ecosystem that fosters business scale-up and exports are key to Canada’s success which includes investment — and standardization is foundational to each of these components.

Standards can be used to support regulation and policy because they are more agile and can be kept up to date with technological and environmental changes. They also provide a mechanism for ensuring health and safety, as well as quality, of products and services, which is particularly important in new industries.

With emerging industries such as those in the bioeconomy, the market desire is to shift from using traditional products to new, bio-based ones. So not only do consumers need to feel trust to purchase, but funders, manufacturers, distributors, and all parts of the supply chain need to trust enough to invest. Standards can be used in countless ways to achieve this, including supporting the infrastructure, such as the recent work we’ve done around establishing agri-blockchain, to ensuring interoperability between products and systems, like standards related to the Internet of Things (IoT).

What’s the biggest misunderstanding about standards?

There’s a longstanding belief that standards are barriers to innovation rather than enablers. People often think an ingenious idea can’t get to market because it doesn’t meet certain specifications. Yet the reality is, in fact, the opposite. It’s true that products need to be safe, but demonstrating compliance to a standard provides evidence of safety, which builds confidence for regulators to allow that product into the market, and for investors. In addition, designing with international standards in mind that could impact interoperability opens the door to global markets. And with new technologies like those for bioproducts, companies have the opportunity to help create the standards that will shape the market. 

What are some examples of standards that benefit the bioeconomy in Canada?

Ontario-based Ecostrat Inc. is a biomass company that leveraged standardization to solidify its position as a leader in the Canadian bioeconomy. Ecostrat works in the extraction and use of biomass products. It had difficulty obtaining financing for bio-projects because a standardized way to evaluate risk didn’t exist. We worked with them to support the development of CSA W209 Biomass Supply Chain Risk as a National Standard of Canada and create a validated method to price feedstock risk and accelerate bio-project financing.

Another good example is Quebec-based FPInnovations which specializes in scientific solutions for the forestry sector, one of which is a proprietary process that recovers a highly versatile waste product from the pulp industry called lignin. This renewable bioproduct can be used as a replacement for fossil-based raw materials in things like carbon fibre, adhesives, resins, and various chemicals. Efforts to commercialize lignin exposed a lack of reliable and market-accepted methods for characterizing their chemical composition, structure and properties. We supported them in developing international standardized methods to quantify lignin purity and suitability in various applications. The four ISO standards (ISO 24196, ISO 24215, ISO 6350, and ISO 9795) will help promote the commercialization of lignin and lignin production processes.

Nature Fibres, also from Quebec, was the first in North America to manufacture bio-based hemp insulation material for the construction industry. The lack of a North American standard for bio-based construction materials made it challenging to bring its product to market. By using the standardization system, Nature Fibres collaborated with National Research Council’s Canadian Construction Materials Centre to identify testing and performance requirements for compliance with the National Building Code, which resulted in a published Technical Guide for bio-sourced products.

What’s the one thing you would want people to know about standardization?

That standards are made by real people. These are experts and interested parties who influence the development of standards and therefore help set the market rules. Representatives from government, industry, consumer groups, and academia all have a voice and can especially impact new areas, like bio-based products. There are many ways to get involved and lots of committees that could benefit from the input.

The post Standards — the Key to Unlocking Canada’s Bioeconomy appeared first on HiveInnovates.

BioMass Canada (BMC) was developed by BioFuelNet, with support from the Canadian Agricultural Partnership and other industry partners. The first five-year cycle of BMC work improved technologies and market opportunities for biomass and bioenergy, benefitting agricultural producers across Canada, including in the northern regions.

Here we present three successful examples of BMC research during its first cycle (2018 to 2023):

A research team led by Dr. Charles Xu of Western University, partnering with Western Maple Bio Resources Inc. (WMB), has developed novel formaldehyde-free bio-based wood adhesives from agricultural biomass/residues. Currently, WMB is developing a full-scale production plant with an 8,000-tonne annual capacity and seeking commercialization in China and North America.

A research team led by Dr. Kevin Vessey of Saint-Mary’s University investigated the establishment and yield potential of four purpose-grown biomass crops (switchgrass, Miscanthus, coppiced willow, and coppiced hybrid-poplar) at seven marginal land sites across Nova Scotia with the support from Canadian Agricultural Partnership, the Nova Scotia Innovation Hub Fund, the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture, Saint Mary’s University, and other local industry partners. They were also evaluating the potential of three locally sourced, low-cost biological inputs (pulp mill residue, anaerobic digestate, and seaweed extract) for growth enhancement of these crops and developing mathematical models to predict yield for these biomass crops based on meteorological conditions. 

The four crops did grow successfully at all seven sites, but yield varied significantly among sites. From a plantlet-production system developed in their lab, Miscanthus is particularly successful with yields greater than 19 tonnes of dry weight per year. Pulp mill residue and anaerobic digestate significantly increased crop yield at most sites. This research provided first-hand information on the yield potential and the best practices for producing these biomass crops, reducing the financial risk to potential producers and users of the biomass in Nova Scotia. These crops may help create new revenue streams for agricultural producers from underutilized, marginal lands and help diversify the biomass feedstock base and attract more biomass processing facilities to Nova Scotia, plus help create new markets for pulp-mill residue and aerobic digestate.

A research team led by Dr. Donald Smith of McGill University discovered and developed new phytomicrobiome-based technologies causing increased crop biomass and food production. They identified new microbial strains that promote plant growth, particularly under abiotic stress — stresses that will become more prevalent as climate change develops. A phytomicrobiome-based commercial product based on newly identified microbial strains is being developed by the industrial partner —Agroworld. Commercial products stemming from this work are inexpensive and environmentally compatible, and thus an overall positive to the Canadian farming community. 

Over the coming five-year cycle (2023 to 2028), BMC hopes to continue work that enhances biomass production, to underpin the growing Canadian bioeconomy through new research in key areas. We also include considerations around greenhouse gas reductions to mitigate climate change effects, particularly on agriculture. We will approach this by reutilizing materials that would have been agricultural residuals/food wastes and using microbes associated with plants to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through increased biomass production.

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Using vertical farming technologies, Hamilton, Ontario-based Urban Stalk is practicing sustainable agriculture and helping ensure healthy food for at-risk communities.

Access to nutritious foods is critical to good health. But according to the latest data from Statistics Canada, 4.4 million Canadians are classified as food insecure.

Founded in 2018, Urban Stalk aims to make food insecurity a thing of the past. As one of Canada’s first fully circular hydroponic crop producer, Urban Stalk is using leading technology in vertical farming to ensure an abundant supply of healthy and sustainably produced crops that are accessible to all. 

Mediaplanet recently spoke with Brent Downey, Urban Stalk’s Founder and CEO, to learn more about how his company is transforming agriculture and solving food security challenges through circular processes.

What inspired you to establish Urban Stalk?

First, my own education and research around circular economic principles in Canada, France, and South Korea exposed me to the idea that agriculture could be transformative to environmental sustainability. Second, I grew up in a single-parent household where we experienced food insecurity. I wanted to take my education, skill set, and experience to create an organization that would help ensure that future generations won’t know what food insecurity is.

How is Urban Stalk supporting the circular economy?

We created what’s known as FOSESUS Pod technology — that’s food security and sustainability put together. The FOSESUS Pods create micro-controlled environments that are customized for different types of produce to ensure they’re grown to have the highest nutritional impact and are free from harmful chemicals. Using this technology and working with our retail partners, we’ve been able to divert a lot of organic waste from landfill and turn it into a natural nutrient base to grow new food. So, you might say we’re a Grower Plus in that we’re not just delivering produce that we grow but also helping our clients adopt more circular practices and become more environmentally sustainable. 

You might say we’re a Grower Plus in that we’re not just delivering produce that we grow but also helping our clients adopt more circular practices and become more environmentally sustainable.

Why are community partnerships, both in Canada and abroad, so critical to your success?

You need community involvement, incentives, and partners to create a circular supply chain. For example, the retail grocers we work with commit to separating organic waste from natural waste disposal and offer them price and quantity discounts in return. We also work with academic and innovation partners across Canada and the United States, specifically around natural resource challenges. These partnerships are necessary to bring forth that innovation that will propel us forward. 

How is Urban Stalk supporting and empowering communities to be food secure?

That’s tied into our social vision, under the One Health One Planet Initiative which is comprised of four pillars: 

• Help at-risk and urban communities gain access to healthy foods 
• Ensure a resilient local supply of organic and local foods 
• Continuously innovate and improve agricultural technology and 
• Educate future generations on the importance of nutritional health  

Why are alternative forms of agriculture so important to food security?

We’re quite reliant on imported food products from the U.S., particularly from California, where there have been many droughts and forest fires. As climate change accelerates and government policies change, we need a Plan B to ensure domestic food security. COVID-19 has taught us that things can change very fast, and when push comes to shove, export-based countries like the U.S. start to become more domestically focused. We need to start thinking outside the box and look to alternative farming to ensure a secure food supply for ourselves. 

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Entrepreneurs are critical to transforming Canada’s economic and environmental prosperity, but they cannot do it alone.

Climate commitments call for the halving of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. To do this, every sector of the economy will have to transform in just over two business cycles and keep that pace if Canada is to reach its 2050 net-zero targets. Some may argue this is too difficult, but Leah Lawrence, President and CEO of Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), says she has never been more optimistic about our climate future. The reason? The depth of innovation coming from Canada’s sustainability entrepreneurs. 

According to a recent report by the International Energy Agency, only half of the technologies needed to meet global 2050 targets are known today. And while the pace of innovation in sustainable technologies is growing exponentially, it still takes, on average, 13 to 15 years for sustainable tech companies to reach commercialization.

“This is far too slow,” says Leah. “We need to stop fixating on silver-bullet inventions and focus on building a sustainable innovation ecosystem that can help bring a critical mass of companies from all sectors to a global scale.”

SDTC, an independent federal foundation which provides non-repayable contributions to Canadian entrepreneurs, is working to shorten the timeline to commercialization by funding companies at the seed, start-up, and scale-up levels. 

Over the last five years, SDTC has increased the number of companies it supports by 360 percent, becoming the largest funder of sustainable small- and medium-sized businesses in Canada. At the same time, the organization has transformed to better meet the needs of entrepreneurs, moving at the speed of business to shorten timelines from application to first cheque.

“Before joining SDTC, I founded three start-ups,” says Leah. “I remember how difficult it was to build a business from the ground up. Worrying if you are going to make payroll. Paying yourself last. Bootstrapping. The last thing an entrepreneur needs is having to navigate more red tape.”

SDTC funding also serves as a springboard to help companies unlock future public and private sector investments, find new customers, and better connect with other players in local and national entrepreneurial ecosystems. 

Leah underscores that building, strengthening, and connecting these ecosystems of suppliers, funders, and customers are critical to Canada’s ability to tap into the growing global demand for sustainable tech.  

“The idea isn’t the hard thing,” she stresses. “It is the commercialization of the thing. It’s getting it to market. It’s selling it not once but a hundred, a thousand, or a million times. Because from a firm viability standpoint, and from the standpoint of meeting the world’s greatest sustainability challenges: if it doesn’t deploy, it doesn’t matter.”

The post For Canada to Reach Net Zero, It’s All about the Companies appeared first on HiveInnovates.

Environmentally and socially conscious companies that have net-zero milestones to meet and environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) goals to reach have a lot to contend with these days. This includes an assortment of legislative mandates, frameworks and standards to navigate — many of which don’t harmonize together cohesively. Fortunately, an organization is finally tackling this issue. FigBytes is the leading ESG Insight Platform that manages sustainability data, reporting, strategy, and stakeholder engagement for all your purpose-driven goals. We talked to Ted Dhillon, Co-Founder and CEO of FigBytes, about the FigBytes Insight Platform, the difference between climate accounting and climate action, and why carbon emissions are just the tip of the iceberg.

Can you tell us about FigBytes? What inspired you to start the company?

FigBytes was built to help organizations navigate the path to net zero while addressing the full scope of their ESG and sustainability challenges. During my time working with the United Nations on various humanitarian relief efforts around the world, I saw the impacts of climate change firsthand. That experience sparked my passion for sustainability. I’m also fascinated by how technology can play an instrumental role in solving complex problems like climate change, so I started FigBytes to bring my passion for sustainability together with technology.

Sustainability means more than just climate, though. Many other elements make up the sustainability challenge, for example, water issues,  biodiversity loss, social impacts, and governance issues. FigBytes was built to handle all of these elements.

The path to net zero begins with the four pillars: strategy, data, reporting, and engagement.

What are the four pillars of the FigBytes Insight Platform?

Our platform visualizes the path that an organization would take to reach net zero and it encompasses four pillars: strategy, data, reporting, and engagement. It all starts with a strategy that integrates with your corporate ambitions and commitments. Next is connecting and capturing the relevant data from across an organization, calculating the impact (for example, carbon emissions), and then reporting those results against goals and milestones. Finally, the platform incorporates tools for engagement and sharing results with customers, employees, regulators and investors.

What are some of the common problems you’re helping businesses and governments solve on their path to net zero?

I certainly feel the pain that sustainability leaders face today. We’ve all heard ambitious goals of reaching net zero by a certain date. But there are real headwinds organizations and governments face on their way to achieving net zero. Misaligned or unrealistic climate-related goals abound. Data is almost always stored and managed in multiple systems, and collecting it manually can be costly and time-consuming. It can take months just to collect the data to simply know the carbon footprint of your organization. Changing regulations and mandatory reporting standards add to these challenges, not to mention the heightened expectations and stakeholder focus on an organization’s climate impacts and progress. We help sustainability leaders overcome these challenges by providing the tools and insights they need to easily navigate their organization’s path to net zero.

How are you helping sustainability leaders solve these challenges?

Sustainability leaders and the people tasked with making net zero a reality need better information to make decisions on how to shape their sustainability programs. They need reliable data that their stakeholders and investors can trust.

At FigBytes, we help organizations solve these problems first by helping them build an actionable path toward net zero. We make an organization’s emissions reduction strategy actionable with data. We make this data easily accessible through automation wherever it resides, and we ensure reporting is an ongoing but effortless process. And we make it easy for sustainability leaders to show their progress to a growing pool of stakeholders, ensuring full transparency. These solutions help sustainability leaders get more time back in their days to do the important work of reducing their carbon footprints instead of chasing after data. Using machine learning to turn that data into insights helps sustainability leaders model and predict the next best steps toward net zero. That’s how they can create a realistic path to net zero that goes beyond promises to focus on action and results.

With regards to ESG and sustainability, where should organizations focus now?

Organizations need to focus on incorporating systems and processes into their operations to make collecting and gathering their ESG and sustainability data easier. They should also ensure they are considering all aspects of ESG and sustainability, not just carbon accounting, when putting programs and policies in place. Considerations like how they will track, report, and manage their Scope 3 emissions, water footprint, waste management and more. They should also be thinking about how they can use this data to act on their sustainability goals and commitments.

What’s the difference between climate accounting and climate action?

Climate accounting is the standard starting point — knowing where an organization stands. Climate action is the next stage. It involves strategies and tools to achieve improvement on the baseline.

What’s the one thing businesses and governments can start doing now to get to net zero

Businesses and governments can start by gathering their data to assess their current emissions and use that data to set realistic milestones for reaching their net zero goals. You wouldn’t commit to running a marathon next month without knowing your current fitness state and that same principle applies to businesses and governments making net zero goals. Setting milestones supported by data allows organizations to commit to achievable and impactful action plans for reaching net zero.

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Nothing beats an underdog story, especially when that underdog is up against the biggest threat we’ve ever faced: a changing climate.

In 2021, when the Group of Seven (G7) announced its collective commitment to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, Canada might have been perceived as an underdog in the emissions-reduction race compared to France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 

But don’t underestimate Canada’s determination! 

We have the ability to become a world leader in cleantech innovation, creating a future where the worst effects of climate change are mitigated and our planet is protected for future generations. Imagine a world where our grid is powered entirely by renewables, our vehicles run off clean hydrogen, and methane emissions from cattle are drastically reduced. These aren’t just dreams. Canadian innovators are actively building this reality.

After decades of working with cleantech innovators and enablers, I know Canada can be the first G7 country to reach net zero. We have the innovation, the determination, and the resources to get there. And Foresight Canada is the organization that will bring people together to spur this change. 

Pursuing Canada’s path to net zero

Since 2018, Foresight has supported nearly 900 ventures and more than 150 industry partners through its programs. Our expertise has helped secure $2 billion in capital and almost $348 million in revenues and created over 7,000 high-paying jobs, with an economic impact of over $1.5 billion. We have a strong history of strategy, ecosystem mapping, and partnership building that positions Canada as a global leader in cleantech innovation.

Foresight is enabling Canada to win the net-zero race. But this audacious goal wasn’t dreamt up in a vacuum. Canada is ranked 39 in the world when it comes to population, but we consistently punch above our weight class in innovation, progressive policies, and environmental stewardship. Canadians have given the world game-changing inventions like insulin, the telephone, and pacemakers — improving the lives of countless people on this planet. 

And now, our cleantech innovators are at the forefront of global change in spaces like water, agriculture, carbon capture, energy, and the built environment. 

Join in the fight

Foresight’s Annual Report outlines the steps we’ve taken and the steps we’ll take to help Canada become the first G7 country to reach net zero. But to triumph in this underdog story, we need all the brainpower and tenacity we can muster. And we need to work together. Join our free Community of Innovators network to help make this big audacious goal a reality. This community consists of over 1,000 cleantech innovators and enablers actively moving us toward a net-zero reality.

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