Professor Lukas Bichler watches as Honourable Harjit S. Sajjan, Minister of International Development and Minister responsible for the Pacific Economic Development Agency of Canada dons safety gear before participating in a demonstration using a kiln and hot metal at UBCO’s Clean Tech Hub.
The Government of Canada is supporting initiatives that build a clean and prosperous future. That includes helping B.C companies lower their environmental footprint while creating jobs.
Today, the Honourable Harjit S. Sajjan, Minister of International Development and Minister responsible for the Pacific Economic Development Agency of Canada (PacifiCan) announced $1.04 million in funding to the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus (UBCO) to help local businesses implement cutting-edge circular economy practices.
In a circular economy, nothing is waste. The circular economy retains and recovers as much value as possible from resources by reusing, repairing, refurbishing, remanufacturing, repurposing, or recycling products and materials. It’s about using valuable resources wisely, thinking about waste as a resource instead of a cost, and finding innovative ways to better the environment and the economy.
With this PacifiCan funding, UBCO will connect local businesses with the engineering expertise needed to save industrial materials from landfill, while designing new green products from fully bio-sourced materials. UBCO will also buy new equipment and expand its advanced materials and manufacturing testing capabilities so that more companies can access this support. Technical knowledge developed through these projects will be saved in a digital repository to help current and future companies embrace the circular economy.
The combination of in-person expertise and a digital repository supporting a circular economy is the first-of-its-kind in the province and will build on B.C.’s leadership in clean technology. It will also raise the profile of local companies and innovators who are creating solutions with global impact.
Minister Sajjan made the announcement while celebrating the launch of UBCO’s Clean Tech Hub, an innovation space that received $1.9M from PacifiCan in 2021. This investment is helping UBCO catalyze academic-industry collaborations that help Canadian companies bring their technologies and products to domestic and international markets.
This morning, Minister Sajjan also announced the opening of new PacifiCan offices in Kelowna and Cranbrook. Our expanded footprint means PacifiCan will be more accessible to British Columbians. It will also support high-impact local investments and quality advice, to advance the region’s diverse economic interests.
