November 6, 2023
Sustainable Development Technology Canada
Question:
How does Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) support contribute to Canada advancing toward a net-zero carbon economy?
Key messages:
- Canadian clean technology companies are crucial to ensuring Canada and the world meet their 2030 and 2050 climate commitments
- The Government of Canada is helping ground-breaking clean technology companies as they push the boundaries of innovation and drive economic growth
- Since 2001, the government has allocated more than $2.1 billion to support pre-commercial clean technology companies through Sustainable Development Technology Canada
- This support has enabled Canadian companies to become global leaders in the fight against climate change, while also creating thousands of high-skilled jobs for Canadians
Supplementary messages:
- Sustainable Development Technology Canada has been instrumental to the development of a successful clean technology sector in Canada, in part due to its strong competencies in technical due diligence, relationships in the Canadian clean technology ecosystem, and project oversight
- Sustainable Development Technology Canada works closely with the Business Development Bank of Canada, Export Development Canada, and federal departments by providing referrals and sharing due diligence for cleantech companies, resulting in $770 million in follow-on financing since 2018
- Sustainable Development Technology Canada is Canada's largest funder of clean technology entrepreneurs and supports SMEs in the early stages of their development
- So far, Sustainable Development Technology Canada has invested more than $1.58 billion in over 500 companies that have generated $3.1 billion in annual revenues, created 20,942 jobs, brought 194 new technologies to market and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 22.6 megatonnes of CO2 annually (equivalent to taking almost 7 million cars off the road every year)
Background
Established in 2001, Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) provides funding to support Canadian companies with the potential to become world leaders in their efforts to develop and demonstrate new environmental technologies that address climate change, clean air, clean water and clean soil. Since its inception, over $2.1 billion has been made available to SDTC for projects under the Sustainable Development Technology Fund.
SDTC is an arm's length foundation, and maintains its own independent Board of Directors, which is responsible for overseeing SDTC's operations and strategy, including decisions on project funding. The Board is comprised of 15 Directors (seven Governor in Council, eight appointed by members). Directors may continue to occupy their appointment past its expiry until a replacement is appointed. The current Chair of the Board is Annette Verschuren.
The President and CEO Leah Lawrence is responsible for the day-to-day operations of SDTC.
SDTC is managed as a program under Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED). ISED manages SDTC's Contribution Agreement, which includes terms and conditions related to oversight, cash management (including delivery of payments), and SDTC's reporting obligations to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry.
All funding is project-based and is designed to move technologies through the "demonstration phase" of their development and closer to commercialization. Projects under the SD Tech Fund (SDTC's flagship fund and its only active fund) are made on a non-repayable basis, and beneficiary firms or their partners are required to provide a portion of their own funding.
SDTC's work is key as it addresses a critical and ongoing funding gap in the innovation landscape at the pre-commercial development and demonstration stage, where risks are often too high for private investment to proceed alone. SDTC support seeks to de-risk the project to unlock further investment and scale-up innovative clean tech companies. SDTC's reputation of over 20 years of operation in the Canadian clean tech ecosystem also serves to crowd in follow-on financing.
SDTC continues to work on contributing to regional development across Canada. In 2022–2023, 40% of SDTC's seed funding recipients came from regions outside traditional centres for sustainable innovations, highlighting the geographic diversity of the Canadian innovation ecosystem. Of those companies that have graduated from SDTC's seed funding program and received approved for start-up funding, nearly 60% are outside of Canada's 10 biggest cities.
Advancing equity in the clean tech industry is also top-of-mind for SDTC. In 2022-23, SDTC continued to deliver on its commitment to the Government of Canada's 50 – 30 Challenge as a framework to accelerate diversity actions. It also continued to advance equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) within the workplace through creation of a strategy to benchmark current practices and inform future actions.