CAANZero, a special MaRS initiative, explored a financing mechanism to help local governments meet sustainability goals.
The impacts of the climate crisis are often most keenly felt when extreme weather events strike communities. And yet, municipalities are also where climate impacts can best be mitigated. In Canada, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities estimates that 50 percent of the country’s GHG emissions are generated within municipal boundaries. Reducing those emissions has immediate environmental, social and economic benefits for those communities — and beyond.
It can be very challenging, however, for municipalities to implement solutions. Demands for low-carbon infrastructure compete with a growing list of socio-economic challenges for which municipalities are tasked with finding solutions and administering community-support programs.
To address financing constraints and capacity shortfalls, the Climate Action Accelerator to Net Zero (CAANZero) aimed to support small and medium-sized municipalities in Canada in meeting their climate goals by tackling these challenges. The goal of the program was to provide small and medium-sized municipalities access to private capital investment to support building retrofits. It also sought to provide expertise and capacity building to identify, evaluate and execute climate-positive projects at the necessary scale and pace.
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