Following the release of a report by Auditor General Karen Hogan, Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) funding and programming will be transferred to the National Research Council (NRC). Established in 2001 as a federal foundation to support small- and medium-sized enterprises involved in clean technology projects, SDTC was promised $1 billion over five years under Innovation, Science, and Economic Development (ISED) in 2021, with a funding pause instituted in the fall of 2023 to address ongoing concerns with funding management.
The report audited 58 projects between 2017 and 2023, during which SDTC approved 226 projects worth $836 million. Eight Start-up and Scale-up projects, worth $51 million, failed to meet key requirements set out in the eligibility criteria, as did two Ecosystem projects. Several projects were found to have misrepresented or overstated environmental benefits, where GHG emissions reductions were considerably lower than initial projections in 12 out of 18 completed projects. An additional 90 projects were found to violate conflict of interest rules.
Contact us to learn more about how you can access cleantech funding as SDTC programming transitions to the NRC.