Our green research success stories

A team of researchers from our Aquatic and Crop Resource Development Research Centre is working with the University of Calgary on a project using field peas to help reduce the carbon footprint of Canada's food production systems. Using advanced genomics and phenomics technologies, the team hopes to increase the quality, profitability and resiliency of field peas grown in Canada by making them less susceptible to root rot and drought. The goal is to provide a climate-resilient field pea that offers a crop still rich in protein, with minimal carbon footprint and that holds greater value for the Canadian economy.

Scientists at the Atlantic Science Enterprise Centre are combining machine learning and chaos theory to predict changes in oxygen levels in Atlantic estuaries. Dissolved oxygen levels are important for water quality. Researchers trained models to predict low oxygen events in advance, even in degraded sites. This way, we can be better prepared and take action to protect the estuaries and the plants and animals that live there.

With flood risks increasing, our Ocean, Coastal and River Engineering Research Centre has been conducting extensive testing on the performance of emergency flood protection barriers. This work will provide technology developers with valuable feedback to refine and optimize the design of these barriers, which serve as a last resort to protect people and property in vulnerable areas.

Through our Platform to Decarbonize the Construction Sector at Scale, the Construction Research Centre is working with collaborators to develop new low carbon guidelines, specifications and standards and carry out research that can help inform and advance future regulatory solutions. Ongoing activities include updates to low carbon solutions in the Canadian National Master Construction Specification (NMS) as well as the development of a guideline to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in federally funded construction projects.

We are also conducting collaborative R&D work in areas such as life-cycle assessment for buildings and infrastructure, digitalization and low carbon construction practices and materials.

Our Construction Research Centre's Climate Resilient Built Environment Initiative supports research and development initiatives that help communities withstand natural climate events and climate-related risks. Through Canada's National Adaptation Strategy, the initiative received an additional $30.1 million to expand on its work. Recent projects include pilot studies on resilient building materials, coastal and river resilience and evaluation of flood barriers. In addition, we're conducting new research on wildfire smoke and extreme wind conditions, such as tornadoes.

Teams at our Automotive and Surface Transportation Research Centre's Advanced Manufacturing program have been working to develop high-quality composite prototypes made of thermoplastics and recycled fibres from used clothing. This work is being done in collaboration with other partners:

• The Salvation Army
• General Recycled
• CTT Group
• Environment and Climate Change Canada

The resulting textiles can be used in automotive interiors, packaging and other manufacturing applications. This unique innovation helps reduce textile waste and promotes a circular economy, providing sustainable solutions for these industries.

To better understand how aircraft generate contrails—the vapour clouds produced by aircraft engine exhaust, our Aerospace Research Centre has been working with France's aeronautics, space and defence research lab, ONERA. Using the unique data sets the NRC has acquired from our high-altitude cruise emissions and contrail flight campaigns, we're able to better support ONERA's scientific understanding of contrail generation and cirrus cloud formation. Together, we will publish the results to help the aviation community improve its understanding of contrail generation and its impact on climate.

Our Aerospace Research Centre has been collaborating with Vancouver's Harbour Air on the certification and commercialization program for their Beaver float plane all-electric conversion by providing our expertise on batteries and battery safety. The project, which brought in Critical Systems Labs as a partner, culminated with a workshop involving the 3 organizations in order to understand some of the unique safety considerations and test methods for airworthiness certification that could be needed for an all-electric float plane. This project, which received funding support from the NRC Industrial Research Assistance Program, aligns with our mission to advance sustainable aviation by helping Harbour Air achieve full Transport Canada certification for their all-electric aircraft for passenger-carrying flights.

As part of the NRC's mission to accelerate sustainable aviation, teams at the gas turbine and aerodynamics labs at the Aerospace Research Centre are working hard to evaluate the performance of a promising new technology in our mission towards sustainable aviation, known as boundary layer ingestion, or BLI. This tech can help increase propulsion efficiency, reduce aircraft fuel consumption and, in turn, reduce emissions during flight, which makes BLI an efficient energy-saving technology for hybrid propulsion systems.

Teams at the Automotive and Surface Transportation Research Centre's Advanced Manufacturing program have been collaborating with Winpak to develop an eco-friendly food packaging material. This transparent, multi-layer food packaging is based on an NRC-patented technology and composed of a unique plastic made entirely from renewable and compostable materials, including starch. This new technology is showing promise as a solution to global waste issues. The success of this project will help Canada meet its national priority of reducing food and plastic waste while advancing our circular bioeconomy.

Our Construction Research Centre is addressing one of the biggest challenges facing Canada's construction sector: decarbonization. Together with academia, industry and governments, the NRC is applying its R&D expertise to support the development and deployment of low carbon construction solutions through its new Platform to Decarbonize the Construction Sector at Scale. As part of this, 2 new Challenge programs are also being developed to focus on supporting industry to develop low-carbon products, decision support tools, and services needed to decarbonize the built environment, as well as the digitalization and modernization of construction practices to enhance productivity.

Magnets containing rare earth elements are critical components for electric vehicle motors and are in increasing demand. However, their supply is at risk because only a limited number of countries produce them. Recycling end-of-life magnets has, therefore, become a critical alternative for countries like Canada that rely primarily on their import. Traditional recycling processes usually involve energy-intensive procedures and toxic chemicals that are costly and cause environmental pollution. The Automotive and Surface Transportation Research Centre and the Energy, Mining and Environment Research Centre are working with Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises to develop a novel approach that is faster, greener and more cost-effective. This approach involves direct recycling of end-of-life magnets into powders for 3D printing of new magnetic parts for electric vehicle motors and other applications.

The NRC is working together with the Canadian Coast Guard to better understand the operational profiles of select Coast Guard vehicles and their corresponding powering and fuel requirements. The collected baseline data will inform decision making for designing green vessels and selecting green machinery. The data will also be the foundation of a model for predicting fuel consumption that will provide real time guidance to navigators in support of greener operations. This initiative is funded by Canada's Greening Government Fund, which promotes and shares innovative approaches to reducing greenhouse gases in Canadian government operations.

The Nanotechnology Research Centre is leading a new project titled, "Advanced nanocomposite membranes for low-cost CO₂ capture and conversion" in collaboration with the Human Health Therapeutics Research Centre, the Construction Research Centre, the University of Alberta and IBM Research.

This initiative aims to develop a robust composite membrane using different nanomaterials for CO₂ capture and conversion, which could help pull CO₂ out of the air and slow rising global temperatures.

People are increasingly embracing novel protein sources for various reasons, including reducing their carbon footprint. That's why experts from our Metrology Research Centre and our Sustainable Protein Production program are working in collaboration with Queen's University on new Certified Reference Materials (CRMs) for alternative protein sources.

You may have heard of plant-based food made from canola and pea plants. CRMs ensure these alternative sources of protein are standardized and safe to consume. In the Canadian Prairies, about 20 million tons of canola is grown annually. While known for its use in cooking, biofuel production and animal feed, canola is now being considered an alternative protein source for human consumption. The new canola meal reference material is the first member of our alternative protein sources CRMs to support consumer food safety and help build a sustainable food supply.

he Canadian supply chain is highly dependent on rail freight transportation. Events related to climate change, such as flooding and wildfires, have become increasingly frequent and severe and are affecting the resiliency and efficiency of railway operations. To combat this, the Automotive and Surface Transportation Research Centre is developing a tool to map national railway risks so rail manufacturers can assess the different risks related to railway tracks and contribute to a more resilient rail transport supply chain.

To better understand the impact of climate change, the Aerospace Research Centre is using the unique capabilities of the Convair 580 "flying laboratory" to conduct in-air research in environment and climate sciences. The aircraft's scientific instruments can support projects in numerous areas, including air quality and emissions research, sustainable aviation and atmospheric studies. This advanced aircraft makes it possible for researchers to measure air pollutants, another way the NRC is contributing to helping Canada meet its climate targets.

Canada has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

To help meet this goal, the NRC's Construction Research Centre and Energy, Mining and Environment Research Centre lead the Low-carbon assets through life cycle assessment initiative, a collaboration between federal government departments, academia, non-government organizations, industry and low-carbon asset experts from across Canada.

The initiative aims to develop a science-based approach for supporting the selection of construction materials and designs that offer the lowest carbon footprint with the lowest total cost.

The Advanced Manufacturing program team is leading the Canadian Lightweight Initiative on Polymer Glazings.

Known as CLIP Glazings, this initiative gathers partners from industry across the transportation supply chain and the public sector to develop high performance polymers to replace conventional glazings for cars and buses, made from tempered or laminated glass.

The use of lighter and more durable material makes it possible to reduce the weight of vehicle glazings by around 50%, which improves energy efficiency for both combustion engine and electric vehicles.

Pulses grown in Canada are considered sustainable, and assessing Canadian pulse processing methods to limit water use, improve energy efficiency and reduce negative impacts on the environment requires credible and representative data.

The NRC's Aquatic and Crop Resource Development Research Centre, in collaboration with the University of British Columbia, are creating a national life cycle inventory database, which will include pulse proteins like beans, lentils and peas. Pulse processing companies will help generate industry-level datasets and confidential sustainability assessments.

This database will enable life cycle analysis with the help of McGill University to identify sustainability gaps and process improvements to support both environmentalism and economic development.

Sustainable forest management requires high-quality information on tree species, biomass and growth rates. The ability to do this is limited not by data, but by the ability to extract this information from very large, complex datasets.

The NRC's Digital Technologies Research Centre, through the Digital Health and Geospatial Analytics Cluster Support program is working on deep learning algorithms that can extract this information from a wide range of remote sensing and other geographic data. This work has the potential to improve forest management practices and measure the impacts of climate change.

24% of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions come from everyday transportation-related activities. The electrification of public transportation is an important step to meet national sustainability goals while targeting one of the largest sources of GHG emissions.

In collaboration with Transport Canada and the Toronto Transit Commission, the Automotive and Surface Transportation Research Centre is conducting North America's largest electric bus trials in the City of Toronto. This research brings Canada closer to a green public transit system.

Since 2016, the NRC has undertaken the Climate-Resilient Buildings and Core Public Infrastructure (CRBCPI) Initiative, with $42.5 million in funding support from Infrastructure Canada. Over the past 5 years, the initiative has worked to develop decision-support tools such as national model codes, guides, standards, and climate design data, which will help ensure buildings and core public infrastructure are designed and built to withstand the effects of climate change in Canada. More information about the project outcomes to date are available on the CRBCPI webpage.

Methane is responsible for 30% of the global rise in temperatures and for about 13% of Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing methane emissions will help combat climate change. Detection and measurement are essential to quantifying the current state and future reductions. Our experts from the Metrology Research Centre and from the Advanced Electronics and Photonics Research Centre have been developing laser-based technologies to detect greenhouse gases. The mid infrared region of the spectrum has sharp absorption peaks for many pollutants, and our researchers developed spectroscopic sensors that can detect the peaks associated with methane and quantify the concentration of methane with very high sensitivity.

To help Canada reduce plastic waste and create business opportunities in the new sector of sustainable products, NRC experts in polymers developed formulations, prototypes and applications using a 100% bio-based and compostable polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA)-based resin produced by Bosk Bioproducts. This collaboration has enabled the company to manufacture entirely compostable bioplastics made from pulp and paper industry waste. The commercialization of Bosk's first line of products on a pre-industrial scale was announced in April 2021.

Microplastics are everywhere, and although at times they can barely be seen with the naked eye, the threat they pose can't be ignored. Under the Innovative Solutions Canada (ISC) program, the NRC launched a challenge to address this threat. More specifically, Canadian companies are challenged to propose a solution that will enable researchers to better identify microplastic particles in our waters. Two companies received Phase 1 funding as a result of their proposal. If successful with their proposed solution, these companies could receive Phase 2 funding to develop a prototype. This challenge shows the positive impact of collaboration between the Government of Canada and industry on innovative technology.

Ocean heating tracks the evolution of climate change. This knowledge is essential in improving climate change quantification and predictions. Ultra-accurate thermometry is required to monitor ocean temperature change, but measuring the temperature in oceans is quite challenging. Given its crucial importance in quantifying global warming and in predicting the future climate evolution, the monitoring of deep-ocean temperature changes can be enhanced by increasing the level of accuracy in its measurement. This is where the NRC's Metrology Research Centre can help to make sure the measurements are as accurate as possible.

Aviation is one of the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions driving global climate change. The NRC's Metrology Research Centre is working on a pioneering study to investigate the impacts of sustainable aviation fuel on aircraft engine emissions and performance to reduce greenhouse gas and black carbon emissions. Using sustainable aviation fuels will result in significant life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions reductions. It will also have immediate impacts on non-CO2 emissions, such as black carbon, which are a large part of the total climate effects of aviation emissions.

The Advanced Electronics and Photonics Research Centre develops novel components in support of the telecommunications industry's ever-increasing data rate requirements. This technology is the backbone of the digital economy where physical transactions are replaced by virtual ones, reducing the need for physical transport. Growing demands for data have dramatically increased power consumption in data centres. In response, the Centre is also developing a new generation of semiconductor laser technologies that allow the transport of data with less power, helping to decrease carbon emissions per transmitted bits.

Since Canada has more than 200,000 kilometres of coastline and a vast network of rivers, the NRC's Ocean, Coastal and River Engineering Research Centre has been studying how to refine and quantify the country's extensive water resource opportunities. Once the most promising sites are identified and verified, extraction technologies such as tidal, river or wave-energy converters can be deployed to produce useful energy to power urban centres and remote communities. Reducing our dependence on fossil fuels will serve to reduce ocean acidification which will create a healthier ocean.