Montréal’s world reputation in the fields of tech, neuroscience, education, aerospace, artificial intelligence and sustainable mobility and intelligent transportation is as a groundbreaking hotspot of research and development. And the city’s development in Clean Technology has seen the city take another leading role in a rapidly growing sector.
A centre of clean technology expertise
Montréal’s focus on clean technologies has solidified the city’s leadership position in the field, tackling several of the planet’s most pressing environmental technological concerns head on. From waste and water management to green chemistry and energy efficiency, Montréal is leading the way forward and the world is taking note.
A few other areas where Montréal is making waves include:
- Energy efficiency
- Recycling
- Technologies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions
- Contaminated soil and groundwater treatment and remediation
- Treatment of atmospheric emissions and ambient air
- Development of technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
- Effluent measurement and control technologies
- Life cycle assessment
A home base of important clean research labs and organizations
Thanks in part to the city’s competitive operating costs and a series of attractive tax and financial incentives from the Québec (and Canadian) governments, Montréal is also home to a number of important research facilities and organizations dedicated to the cause of clean technology. Their findings are also being put to good use in our own backyard, with Montréal on track to reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2020 and the leading city in North America for sustainable mobility and electric transportation.
A list of some of the groundbreakers active in Montréal include:
- National Resources Canada’s CanmetENERGY lab
- The Water Treatment Technology and Process Research, Development and Validation Centre (CREDEAU) at Polytechnique Montréal.
- The Research Centre on the Dynamics of the Earth System (Geotop)
- The Industrial Research Group in Technologies of Energy and Energy Efficiency (T3E)
- The Natural Gas Technologies Centre (NGTC)
- The International Reference Centre for the Life Cycle of Products, Processes and Services (CIRAIG)
- HydroQuébec’s research Institute, IREQ
- The Industrial Materials Institute (NRC-IMI)
A leading city in education – and the labour pool to prove it!
The local higher education scene makes Montréal a bona fide city of knowledge, and students agree it’s a great place to learn. And with over 170,000 students enrolled in universities here annually, 20,000 of which are foreign students, Montréal produces a work force to be reckoned with, with several institutions offering clean technology-related degrees and certificates including:
- McGill University
- Concordia University
- Université de Montréal
- Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
- Université de Sherbrooke – Longueuil Campus
- École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS)
- École nationale d’administration publique (ENAP)
- HEC Montréal
- Institut national de la recherché scientifique (INRS)
- Polytechnique Montréal
Clean technology is big business in Montréal
Over 30,000 people work in clean technology-related jobs in Québec at over 1,000 organizations, including 200 research and development or technology transfer companies and 500 innovative companies. The Technoparc Montréal scientific campus is also home to the Éco-campus Hubert Reeves, North America’s first centre dedicated to R&D companies in clean technologies.
Major players based in the city like SNC-Lavalin and Dessau-Soprin International live alongside new groundbreakers like Enerkem (who’ve developed a process of manufacturing biofuels and renewal chemical products from non-recyclable waste) and GHGSat (the world’s first high-resolution satellite capable of measuring greenhouse gas emissions from any industrial facility in the world). With $1.5 billion spent on research and development each year and $13.3 billion in revenue, Montréal is a major player in not just how that money is spent, but also how it’s made.
Read this next: 15 Montréalers changing the world
