Canadore College has committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2031 across its managed facilities, including its satellite presence in Mattawa, Ontario. The college’s roadmap, ‘Our Path to Carbon Neutral,’ sets a target to balance greenhouse-gas emissions from its operations with equivalent removals across all locations.
The roadmap names building upgrades and cleaner technologies — including solar, geothermal, hydroelectric and battery energy storage solutions — among the facility decarbonization strategies under consideration. It also sets a Zero Waste goal: a 90% waste-diversion target to be achieved by 2031.
For residents and students in the area, those changes could create local construction and retrofit work for energy-efficiency projects and expand training opportunities tied to the growing green economy. Canadore already partners with the Canadian Ecology Centre in Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park (Mattawa) for outdoor field training and applied research, and the roadmap highlights community collaboration and ‘living labs’ as part of its education and research approach.
The college is supporting the plan with federal investments tied to regional innovation and clean-water initiatives. FedNor announcements in 2022–23 involved more than $3.2 million in funding for projects in the North Bay region that included Innovation Initiatives Ontario North (IION) and Canadore College; Canadore’s direct FedNor allocations cited in those releases included $750,000 to establish an Indigenous Clean Water Learning Lodge and additional support for ICAMP-related innovation projects. As George Burton, President and CEO of Canadore College, wrote in the roadmap: “We will not wait for others to address climate change or to build healthier, more sustainable communities.”
