New provincial program to help reduce greenhouse gas pollution

To help fight climate change, Ontario is encouraging businesses, utilities, non-profit organizations, registered charities, conservation authorities and Indigenous organizations to develop new and innovative solutions for reducing greenhouse gas pollution.

Chris Ballard, Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, was joined today by Parminder Sandhu, Green Ontario Fund board chair and Interim CEO, to announce the launch of the GreenON Challenge.

This program will support the exploration and development of new projects to reduce pollution, advance the province’s low-carbon economy and meet Ontario’s greenhouse gas reduction targets.

Projects could include, for example:

Developing buildings that use dramatically less energy than typical buildings due to energy efficient designs, including high level insulation, high-performance windows and construction materials that prevent air leaks
A row of houses that save energy by sharing it from one centralized heating source
Developing new financing mechanisms for low-carbon technologies and processes
Developing more energy efficient practices to develop products, such as switching to less carbon-intensive fuel, like biofuels, recovering heat, or changing the chemical makeup of a process
Finding transformative ways to increase the number of home energy improvements.

Funded by proceeds from Ontario’s carbon market, the Green Ontario Fund is making it easier for people and businesses to choose and adopt low-carbon technologies and processes that help reduce greenhouse gas pollution at home and work.

Making it easier to access and adopt low-carbon technologies and processes is part of Ontario’s plan to create fairness and opportunity during this period of rapid economic change. The plan includes a higher minimum wage and better working conditions, free tuition for hundreds of thousands of students, easier access to affordable child care, and free prescription drugs for everyone under 25 through the biggest expansion of medicare in a generation.

QUICK FACTS

Ontario is investing up to $300 million in the GreenON Challenge, beginning in 2018-19. To apply or learn more, visit GreenON.ca.
Ontario-based private businesses, non-profit organizations, registered charities, conservation authorities and utilities, as well as Indigenous not-for-profit organizations, are invited to submit expressions of ideas by May 7, 2018. Selected applicants will be invited to submit a more detailed business case.
To be eligible, projects must be done in Ontario, have the potential to help Ontario meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals as part of its Climate Change Action Plan, be completed within four years and not receive funding from another program funded with proceeds from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Account.
The Climate Change Action Plan and carbon market form the backbone of Ontario’s strategy to cut greenhouse gas pollution to 15 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, 37 per cent by 2030 and 80 per cent by 2050. The government will report on the plan’s implementation annually and review the plan at least every five years.