Fighting Climate Change through Chemistry: GreenCentre’s IHC4 Program

[ACSGCI]

Contributed by Laura M. Reyes, Marketing & Communications Coordinator, GreenCentre Canada

It is critically important that the right resources are readily available to advance chemistry technologies with the potential to impact climate change. GreenCentre’s IHC₄ program is there to help.

GreenCentre Canada created the InnovationHouse Chemistry Countering Climate Change (IHC₄) program to advance technologies that could directly counter climate change, or otherwise help the world adapt to a changing climate. These technology areas could include anything from greenhouse gas reduction and utilization to water and resource management, plus anything in between. The IHC₄ program provides resources—either through services or direct funding—to chemistry-and-materials-based technologies that show environmental and commercial promise.

So far, GreenCentre has run two initiatives under the IHC₄ flag:

• IHC₄ Competition

Through the IHC₄ Competition, GreenCentre is providing development services and resources to start-ups and small-to-medium enterprises at no cost to the winning clients. The IHC₄ Competition culminated in an exciting day of presentations from nine finalists to a panel of experts, as captured in a video of that day. Out of these, the five resulting competition winners were: Alchemy, Anomera, CHAR Technologies, Forward Water Technologies, and Qwatro, whose projects are all currently being planned and carried out in the GreenCentre labs.

• IHC₄ Call for Academic Inventions

The IHC₄ Call for Academic Inventions supports early-stage academic technologies by awarding proof-of-principle grants up to $50,000 per project. The application period for this competition just closed on December 15. In the next phase, projects will be assessed and sent out to an industrial review committee who will not only help choose the winning grant recipients, but will also provide valuable feedback to applicants regarding potential commercial applications from an industry perspective.

We have already seen a very positive response to these IHC₄ initiatives. Climate change is a global and communal problem that we all face, but few people (relatively speaking) realize the huge impact that chemistry can have in fighting against it. By creating a program specifically for technologies that use chemistry to counter climate change, we have noticed a deeper understanding of the importance of advancing green and sustainable science.

At GreenCentre, we plan to continue creating and organizing IHC₄-focused opportunities that enable us to support innovation in chemistry and materials at various stages of development.

Want to stay updated on upcoming GreenCentre and IHC₄ news? The best way is to sign up to our InnovationHouse portal, where you can learn more about our competitions and portfolio technologies, and keep up to date on our network. We will also be at the 21^st Annual GC&E Conference in June 2017 – see you there!

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