Net-Zero Transformation: plan municipal action to cut emissions
Grants up to CAD 200,000 for Canadian municipalities and their partners to prepare innovative plans that can produce significant long-term emissions reductions and set out how to implement them.
Develop a municipal plan that leads to practical action, such as new bylaws or a neighbourhood designed for net-zero emissions. Net zero means reducing emissions as close to zero as possible and absorbing an equivalent amount of any that remain. This covers operating emissions and emissions from materials throughout their life, including extraction, manufacture, transport, construction and disposal. Innovation can involve the plan’s scope, partnerships, engagement methods or data analysis.
The grant covers up to 50% of eligible costs, capped at CAD 200,000. Up to 80% may be available for municipalities of 10,000 people or fewer and their partners; regional governments or municipal groups whose member municipalities average 10,000 people or fewer; eligible Indigenous communities; or Northern communities. Northern or eligible Indigenous communities applying to GMF for the first time may qualify for up to 100%. The North means the three territories and Statistics Canada’s designated northern parts of seven provinces, as defined on the official offer page.
Eligibility
Canadian municipalities and municipal partners can apply: companies, municipal corporations, regional/provincial/territorial organizations delivering municipal services, nonprofits, NGOs and research institutes. An Indigenous community can lead through a Canadian municipal partnership or a shared-service agreement concerning municipal infrastructure, climate change or adaptation.
Your plan must use an integrated approach: people from different disciplines work together to meet shared, cross-disciplinary objectives. It must also include a strategy for putting the plan into practice, identifying implementation requirements such as investment and operating funding or changes to engineering standards. These are required elements, not merely preferred planning methods.
The plan must show a high level of innovation and significant improvement beyond best practice. This can come from developing or applying new knowledge, policy, practice, business models or advanced technology; or from using an existing technology or practice in a new way that substantially changes operations or performance. Where advanced technology is the innovation route, the guide specifies government readiness level 7 or above: at least a prototype ready for demonstration in an appropriate operating environment.
There is no preset environmental percentage target. Explain how the plan can generate or enable significant long-term greenhouse-gas reductions. Direct reductions must be quantifiable; indirect reductions need a strong rationale and clear assumptions about effects in the short, medium and/or long term. GMF considers both the scale of potential reductions and whether other municipalities could adopt the solution, supported by measurable benefits, a widespread municipal need and strong reasons for adoption.
Describe planned engagement with relevant stakeholders and rights holders, including Indigenous groups and people facing systemic barriers or exclusion, and the social and economic benefits the plan would generate and fairly distribute. GMF assesses who benefits and who bears burdens. Broader anti-racism, reconciliation, inclusive engagement and social/environmental measures strengthen an application, but the page presents these broader measures as preferences rather than absolute eligibility conditions.
How to apply
- Status
- Open continuously
- Round restrictions
- Year-round subject to available funds; approval may be deferred to the next fiscal year. Enhanced funding shares have applicant-specific conditions.
Applications are accepted year-round until funds are allocated; approval may be deferred to the next fiscal year beginning 1 April. Discuss your plan with GMF at gmfinfo@fcm.ca or 1-877-417-0550, create a Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) portal profile and submit a pre-application. If invited, submit the full application and GMF’s Excel project workbook, the supplied template for your budget, workplan and funding sources, with supporting documents. The authorized application contact submits; consultants cannot sign or submit on your behalf. Invitation does not guarantee funding.
Provide municipal support, a team chart and résumés, and letters for confirmed funding. Nonmunicipal leads need a municipal contact and council partnership resolution with the pre-application, incorporation documents and CEO or CFO support. Municipal corporations document their municipal relationship and mandate. Indigenous applicants provide the partnership resolution or relevant shared-service agreement according to their route. All financing must be confirmed before the first payment, but need not be confirmed before submission.
Quebec municipalities and municipal corporations must have their pre-application approved by the ministère des Affaires municipales et de l’Habitation (MAMH). Submit through that ministry’s municipal portal; it checks compliance and forwards compliant applications to GMF.
Costs generally qualify after GMF receives the full application. Up to CAD 5,000 for writing the application in the preceding 90 days may qualify. Expenses must be reasonable, essential and invoiced to the applicant. Follow the linked cost table’s expense-statement and external-audit requirements and retain records for seven years after final payment.
Payment documentation includes the completed plan, final completion report, updated project workbook with expense claim and confirmed funding sources, and a payment request. Progress reports apply for multiple payments or when requested.