Climate Action Challenge 1

Priority Area: Climate Action

Dates: Feb. 2022 - Apr. 2022

Status: Completed

In February 2022, the Halifax Innovation Outpost, supported by the Municipality’s HalifACT team, opened applications for an innovation challenge focused on tackling climate change through green tech, green building, and green jobs.

The challenge was seeking new and innovative ideas that could be tested in real-life settings to address the decarbonizing the Halifax economy.

All applicants were affiliated with a Canadian business, organization, or community group and received:

• Mentorship in the prototyping process and support to sharpen and test their idea with potential customers/users and/or partners.
• Funding of up to $5000 for project costs (including supplies, marketing, purchases, human resources, fees, and/or any other costs).
• An opportunity to showcase ideas and receive feedback and support from advisors in the climate and green building sectors.
• Connection to larger funding for ideas that show promise through the upcoming Halifax Climate Investment, Innovation and Impact Fund (HCI3) Grant Program.
• We are inviting prototypes that offer solutions to the challenge: “How can we accelerate the decarbonization of the Halifax economy?”

Applications for the challenge closed on February 25, 2022, and seven startups and community organizations were awarded $5,000 each and they continue to be supported through developing their ideas and prototypes.

Winners:

1. Organization - One North End & ReCover
   Project Name – Energy Poverty and Green Jobs
   Project Objective - To identify a multi-unit low-income residential building in the North End of Halifax or Dartmouth to be a Deep Retrofit project with a prefabricated process.
   
   
2. Organization – Billet Workshop
   Project Name – Passive Tiny Homes
   Project Objective – To design and build a slender passive house inspired double wall panel, that can be easily implemented in house designs with small footprints, like tiny homes and backyard suits, to allow for the best comfort, on an affordable budget with the lowest impact on the environment.
   
   
3. Organization – Alma Landscape
   Project Name – Landscape Design
   Project Objective - To create a climate-positive landscape design & construction framework that can educate clients, builders and design professionals on the environmental impacts of landscape projects and provide strategies to mitigate those impacts.
   
   
4. Organization – Hope Blooms
   Project Name – Solar Awnings
   Project Objective - To offer youth a space with Solar Awnings where they can connect with nature and do their work at the same time with access to Wi-Fi and charging ports.
   
   
5. Organization – Mynd Solutions Inc
   Project Name – EV Hailing Platform
   Project Objective - To offer an exclusive EV ride/truck hailing platform with tiered offerings
   
   
6. Organization – Ecology Action Centre
   Project Name – Green Jobs for Immigrant and Newcomer Youth
   Project Objective - To mobilize youth from immigrant and newcomer communities and engage in conversations around green jobs. These conversations will be facilitated through roundtable discussions with a goal of bringing to light the many barriers to accessing jobs in the green sector immigrant and newcomer youth face.
   
   
7. Organization – Oathe Project
   Project Name – Decarbonization Impact Calculator
   Project Objective - To better measure or approximate the extent to which a project might reduce CO2 levels with a decarbonization impact calculator

Partners

Stay tuned to hear more about our Challenge winners projects!