The Clean50 Top Projects annually recognize those projects completed in the prior two years based on their innovation, their ability to inform, and inspire other Canadians. The Top Project of the year is then selected each year at the Clean50 Summit, from votes cast by both incoming and Alumni members of the Clean50.
Tidal energy development in Canada stalled in 2023 for lack of a regulatory pathway that both scaled and earned trust, so OSIP set out to build one. Conceived in response to the 2024 federal Tidal Task Force’s call…
Giant legacy asbestos mine waste in Baie Verte, Newfoundland is a massive liability and environmental injustice with health & safety risks for the community; BAIE Minerals, operator of the Atlantic Carbon Mineral Hub, is solving this problem by…
Rising energy costs and thin volunteer boards squeezed Pictou County’s rural halls. Instead of 21 organizations chasing grants and contractors, this project pooled funding, expertise and management. It secured $1.35 million, brought 15 halls to net zero at no cost, and saves $135,000 and 1,200 tonnes yearly.
Canadian job sites scrap reusable brick, steel and fittings, then buy carbon-heavy new material; nobody owned the fix. The collective built masonry, steel and interiors working groups, a five-department federal table and procurement language requiring reuse. Since 2024, 150+ organizations joined, laying groundwork for a digital teardown-to-reuse tracking platform.
Climate risk doesn’t pause for a housing sector already stretched thin, which is why the Academy for Sustainable Innovation built training that meets nonprofit housing staff where they are. Working with BC Non-Profit Housing Association, BC Housing, and…
When a student said the climate facts left her in a dark place, the team rebuilt this free online course around two-eyed seeing, pairing Indigenous knowledge with Western science, plus reflection exercises for hard emotions. Since 2024, 3,000-plus have enrolled; graduates ran for office, rewritten municipal bylaws and launched action groups.
Diesel has powered North American freight rail for a century, but through their Hydrogen Locomotive Program, Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) are testing a replacement. In partnership with CSX, since 2020, the program has grown from North America’s…
Health care generates 4 to 5 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, which makes hospitals both part of the climate problem and one of its more promising fixes. Launched in April 2025 Decarbonization in Action gives Canadian…
Waste mis-sorting and energy loss happen on the warehouse floor, so this program enlisted workers. Behavioural audits, leadership accountability checks and a custom decarbonization tool, used globally, engaged 1,000+ associates. Landfill diversion topped 96%; lighting, HVAC and compressed-air upgrades cut Canadian electricity and gas use. Competition became the driver.
Electric vans are easy; running a national parcel network on them without stranding drivers isn’t. After a 100-van, three-route pilot, scaling meant treating chargers, utility hookups, driver training and route matching as one project: 550+ EVs, 825+ chargers, 17 terminals, 90-plus percent adoption, 3,300 tonnes CO2e avoided in a year.
Every new EV on a residential street is one more appliance the local grid didn’t plan for, and BluWave-ai’s answer is to let the cars help manage themselves. EV Everywhere uses AI to coordinate residential charging schedules, turning…
Under the leadership of Justine Hendricks, Farm Credit Canada developed North America’s first sustainable finance framework for agriculture and food. The framework enables FCC to mobilize capital toward activities that support environmental, social and economic sustainability, helping strengthen…
Chip bags, bread bags and candy wrappers: recyclable but rarely recycled. Having built a domestic pathway with a local processor, this initiative moved flexible plastics beyond depots to curbside, with pink bins and four-stream trucks keeping them separate. Over 300,000 BC households have access to increase collection rates.
When the pressure was on, Calgarians proved that every drop counts! When Calgary’s Bearspaw South Feedermain failed in 2024, residents and businesses reduced water use by an estimated 9.5 billion litres, demonstrating what conservation can achieve under pressure.…
Growing fresh food in winter has never been cheap or easy, but AgriTech North built a greenhouse that argues otherwise. Its 2,500-square-foot Living Lab in northern Ontario pairs a patented multi-layer thin-film envelope (cutting heat loss by ~75%…
Canada’s 500,000-plus oil and gas wells include producers and leakers. This framework separates them, layering production, reserve and ecological data to prioritize cleanup under stewardship law. It sparked a coalition of landowners, scientists, lawyers and Indigenous rights advocates pushing polluter-pay enforcement, providing recommendations to licensees, governments and investors by year-end.
A natural-gas kiln drives over 40 percent of drywall’s carbon footprint. This plant switched to electric heating on Quebec hydro, running fully through a three-year retrofit, to become North America’s first and world’s largest zero-carbon gypsum wallboard plant. Emissions fell 44,000 tonnes a year; energy use fell to 30 percent.
Norway’s Kvina River had been losing an argument with acid rain for decades. The government’s liming program, which added crushed alkaline rock to counteract the acidity, had held the river’s pH at a modest 6, limited by budget…
A Belleville plant’s roof now hosts Ontario’s largest commercial rooftop solar array: 1.58 megawatts behind the meter, installed without interrupting nonstop operations. Ballasted mounts respected the roof’s load limits, and early utility coordination eased interconnection. It avoids 480-plus tonnes of CO2e yearly and promises a 575 percent lifetime return.
Three in four larger Canadian cities lost tree cover in two decades, hitting low-income and racialized neighbourhoods hardest with floods and heat. Since 2024, this national program’s $1.3 million and coaching have backed 150 community projects, restoring nearly 50,000 m² with 43,500 plants and 12,500+ volunteers.
Bell Canada’s network sites need cooling around the clock, typically requiring air conditioners to run continuously regardless of outdoor conditions. A pilot phase change cooling system combines thermal storage, free cooling and low-energy air movement to absorb heat…
Soil health and climate action often get treated as separate projects; the Regenerative Alberta Living Lab treats them as the same one. The initiative pairs roughly 110 core producers across some 400,000 acres with soil scientists to co-develop…
Every home has a drawer of dead gadgets. TELUS collects them in contactless bins at 200-plus stores in nine provinces: any device, any retailer, no account. A certified recycler wipes and shreds rather than resells, closing the privacy gap that sank earlier programs, and since January 2026, 340 phones’ worth has been diverted.
Engineers proved Okanagan Eco Park’s vast flat roof could take major solar without a costly electrical overhaul, finishing in eight weeks. BC’s largest rooftop array, its 2,460 panels, six commercial inverters and five-degree tilt should yield about 1.69 million kWh yearly, enough for roughly 150 homes, on no extra land.
Cement causes about 8 percent of global emissions. PozGlass grinds post-consumer glass into a material replacing up to half of Portland cement. Backed by nearly $6 million in public funding and validated by Lafarge Canada, its Kamloops pilot plant nears commissioning; at scale, it could cut 10 million-plus CO2 tonnes yearly.
Port pollution often does its damage unnoticed. Across two Québec port zones, 10-plus sensor stations track 30 air and water indicators in near real time, logging nearly six million data points to an open portal that flags anomalies for 250,000+ residents in 20 municipalities. UNESCO-recognized, it’s a worldwide port template.
The high-performance construction industry has plenty of open jobs and not enough people trained to fill them, so EnviroCentre built a bridge between classroom and jobsite. RAMP pairs early-career tradespeople with established professionals for mentorship and real-world experience…
As Nova Scotia homelessness rose 90-plus percent, four overlooked Dartmouth municipal lots became 44 Passive House stacked townhouses near schools and transit. Local prefab double-stud walls and rooftop solar cut energy use about 40 percent below code; 12 units are deeply affordable.
Invasive plants and overgrown urban landscapes usually mean herbicides or heavy mowing equipment; Goats in the City brought in a different crew. The company’s prescribed grazing model uses managed goat herds, human Eco-Shepherds, portable fencing and GPS monitoring…
Great Bear Forest Carbon Projects are globally recognized Indigenous-led climate initiatives generating up to 1 million tonnes of carbon credits annually. Emerging from decades of land use planning and negotiation between First Nations and the Government of BC…
To support Canada’s net-zero goals, Natural Resources Canada launched a national cleantech survey targeting more than 2,000 pure-play firms. Developed with industry associations across Canada, the National Cleantech Industry Survey captured over 600 responses from firms and revealed…
Marine mammal detection traditionally relies on slow, manual methods, creating delays in conservation response and resource-intensive processes. Montreal-based startup Whale Seeker developed Möbius to automate detection, accelerate response times, and significantly improve accuracy and efficiency, directly addressing urgent…
HP’s Amplify Impact program is a game changer for the tech industry. This award-winning program aims to drive sustainability performance deep into the channel Partner value chain worldwide, representing an impressive investment in systems change by HP. Designed…
In 2016 AquaAction launched the 10-month AquaHacking innovation program for freshwater, offering intensive mentorship to diverse youth participants willing to dip their toes in water tech. Since 2023, AquaAction has run four AquaHacking Challenges in key regions of…
In August 2023 a devastating wildfire scorched 44,000 hectares of the Ashnola Watershed, severely impacting the land and its ecosystems. In response the Lower Similkameen Indian Band joined forces with Tree Canada and Cariboo Carbon Solutions to launch…
Better Condos Boot Camp (BCBC) is a 1-day in-person workshop that dramatically improves the knowledge (115% improvement) and attitudes (85% improvement) of condo decision-makers who need to be on board for deep-energy retrofits and decarbonization. Condo managers, board…
The SunRise, a residential tower in Edmonton, underwent a deep energy retrofit to replace aging cladding while meeting a 50% decarbonization target. Mitrex designed and delivered a 267 kW building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) facade featuring a Guinness World Record–setting…
To crack open energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions, Tin Whistle Brewing partnered with the City of Penticton to analyze energy use and identify savings opportunities. A key part of the project involved decommissioning a 25-year-old rooftop cooling…
The Region of Peel transformed a closed landfill into the Chinguacousy Beneficial Soil Reuse Site (CBSRS). Launched in August 2024, the CBSRS addresses the challenge of managing excess soil from construction projects. Capable of repurposing 500,000 cubic metres…
Faced with a mere 50% waste diversion rate and escalating costs, Vancouver Convention Centre (VCC) awarded Happy Stan’s Recycling Services (HSR) their resource management contract. HSR took full control of all waste streams while providing consulting services—including internal…
