Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA) | Circular Economy Challenge

Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA) is committing $50 million through its new Circular Economy Challenge to accelerate the province’s transition towards a low-emissions economy. The investment from the Government of Alberta is focused on advancing innovations that will reduce the impacts of material production, processing, and disposal, and support economic diversification. Funding is sourced from the Government of Alberta’s Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) fund. ERA launched the Circular Economy Challenge at GLOBE Forum on Wednesday, March 30, 2022.

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT STAGE
Expressions of interest were invited for innovation to the stages of field piloting, commercial demonstration, or first-of-kind commercial implementation, as described below:

• Field Pilot: At this stage, the technology or innovation is ready to be field-tested in an operational environment. Projects in this category include scale-up of prototypes to representative pilot scale and subsequent in-field testing of pilot units.
• Commercial Demonstration: At this stage of development, the technology or innovation is approaching the final commercial product and representative systems have been built. Projects in this category include the demonstration of near- or fully-commercial scale systems in an operational environment.
• First-of-Kind Commercial Implementation: At this stage, the technology is ready for first-of-kind commercial deployment. Projects in this category will involve the design, construction, and operation of the technology in its final commercial form, with the intent to operate the technology for its full commercial life.

BACKGROUND

Waste has been identified as a global problem. Our economic system functions mainly in a linear fashion: natural resources are extracted and processed into products that are used once before being discarded at end-of-life. This has led to issues including rapid exhaustion of landfill space, accumulation of waste products in the environment, depletion of finite resources, and increasing socioeconomic costs. Production of new goods requires energy and resource inputs with associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and products that degrade in landfills or the environment producing GHGs, including methane and other pollutants.

A key solution proposed for these issues is a Circular Economy. A circular economy is designed to significantly reduce waste and pollution, keep products and materials in use, and regenerate natural systems. Product lifecycles are extended by reuse, recycling, upcycling, resource recovery, and low-impact design. Circular Economy is a cradle-to-cradle approach improving material repurposing, reuse, recovery, and regeneration within supply chains, helping to reduce extraction and consumption of virgin materials in favour of waste recovery and recycling. It is a complex challenge that requires systemic change; innovations in technologies, products, and process; and cross-sector collaboration.

Globally, the circular economy is poised to unlock $4.5 trillion of economic growth by 2030, and as much as $25 trillion by 2050, according to research by Accenture Strategy for the book, Waste to Wealth. By boosting companies’ competitiveness and profitability, the circular economy will make global supply chains more resilient, significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and create over a million jobs in the next decade.

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