Canada’s Greening Government Strategy

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing the human race.

Impacts such as coastal erosion, thawing permafrost, increases in heat waves, extreme weather, droughts and flooding are real, and motivate us to take action.

Canada has committed to combat climate change by working with other nations on the international stage, developing and implementing a strong climate change plan with provinces and territories, and showing leadership at home – by putting our own house in order.

We want to push ourselves to be as low-carbon as we can, because it’s what we need to do.

We are committed to inspiring sustainable ways of working across every part of our operations and to keep us on the right track, we keep raising the bar higher and higher. Building on our commitment to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030, we’ve set ourselves an ambitious new target.

Moving forward, we will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from federal buildings and fleet by 80% below 2005 levels by 2050.

To reach this ambitious target, the Government of Canada will transition to low-carbon and climate resilient operations, while also reducing environmental impacts beyond carbon.

So what does that look like? We need to imagine the world we want to live in, where our environmental impacts and greenhouse gas emissions are much lower because we have changed the way we design our workplaces, our buildings, our operations, the way we get around, and how we engage and partner with the communities around us.

Led by the Centre for Greening Government, the Government of Canada will ensure that Canada is a global leader in low-carbon, resilient and green operations, committed to:

Low-carbon and sustainable buildings,

Using low-carbon vehicles in our fleet and supporting green commuting for our employees,

Assets, services, and operations that are adapted to the changes climate change will bring,

Buying and promoting green products from green businesses.

With a pathway set by the new Greening Government Strategy, we will be using less water, producing less waste, and ensuring our carbon footprint is as small as possible.

We want to take leadership to both learn from and inspire others, to take action today and help build a more sustainable tomorrow for us all.