How NGen’s Sustainable Manufacturing Challenge Aims for a Greener Future

John Laughlin, Chief Technology Officer at NGen, discussed with CanadianSME Small Business Magazine how NGen’s Sustainable Manufacturing Challenge (SMC) intends to drive significant change in Canada’s manufacturing sector. This challenge aligns with the nation’s commitment to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. By investing $35 million in the initiative, NGen aims to foster partnerships between cleantech companies and manufacturers to accelerate the adoption of sustainable practices. The goal is to promote decarbonization and encourage circularity in manufacturing processes, leading to a more sustainable and economically robust industry. This challenge seeks to not only reduce the environmental footprint of manufacturing but also to stimulate innovation and economic growth through collaborative efforts.

John joins NGen from the UK where he was responsible for setting the strategies and running high profile government R&D programmes at Innovate UK worth more than $8.5 billion across the automotive, aerospace and intelligent mobility sectors. John held senior engineering and programme management positions at Visteon working with Ford, Honda, Mazda, Toyota, Suzuki and Volvo. At London Underground his brief was to deliver part of the Olympic Transport Strategy for the London 2012 games. He co-founded Appleseed Solutions, where he helped businesses across the transport sector achieve sustainable business growth, developed the UK Automotive Council’s Strategic Product Roadmap and was the architect and Technical Advisor for Nesta’s Drones Flying High Challenge. He served as Launch Manager to set up Zenzic, a not-for-profit leading on R&D investment strategy in the connected and autonomous vehicles sector.

John holds a Bachelor of Engineering Honours Degree in Manufacturing Systems Management and a Diploma in Industrial Studies. He is an accredited IP advisor by the UK Intellectual Property Office. He is a Chartered Engineer in the UK and a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology.

Can you share the vision behind NGen’s Sustainable Manufacturing Challenge? How does this initiative align with Canada’s goals for achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and what impact do you anticipate it will have on the Canadian manufacturing sector?

NGen’s Sustainable Manufacturing Challenge (SMC) has been designed to leverage Canada’s expertise in technology and innovation to tackle climate change.  The challenge aligns with the Government of Canada’s 2023 Emissions Reduction Plan.  The Plan is an ambitious and achievable roadmap that outlines a sector-by-sector path for Canada to reach its emissions reduction target of 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050.  This $100 million+ challenge will help Canadian cleantech companies further develop sustainable technology for Canada’s advanced manufacturing ecosystem. The focus is on working with and helping both cleantech companies and manufacturers make the transition towards net-zero manufacturing facilities. NGen will invest $35 million of global innovation cluster funding towards this challenge. We expect $65 million+ of co-investment from industry. We are also encouraging other funding organizations to co-invest in the projects to maximize impact.

NGen is looking to support transformative projects that are pushing the boundaries of world-class cleantech for advanced manufacturing and, where appropriate, incorporate advanced manufacturing technology innovations (e.g., artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing, advanced robotics).

Our sustainable manufacturing challenge includes a focus on industrial decarbonization and/or circularity, leading to net-zero manufacturing facilities.

Projects should demonstrate how they will help Canada realize the 2030 Emissions Reductions Plan. Some key objectives the applicants are encouraged to consider include:

• Reduction in GHG emissions

• Reduction in energy and natural resource consumption

• Operational efficiency gains

• Waste reduction

• Use of recycled/sustainable materials

• Total product lifecycle management and closed-loop manufacturing

• Circular manufacturing of materials

Through this challenge, we are enabling cleantech companies in Canada to work with our country’s manufacturers to show an impact on decarbonizing and creating circularity in the manufacturers’ operations and entire supply chains. These solutions will create jobs and have the potential to be commercialized globally and enhancing Canada’s competitiveness (or something).

Some priority cleantech areas identified are:

• Low carbon sources for fuel, feedstock, and energy.                  

• Innovative solutions for high heat generation.

• Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage.

• Track & manage greenhouse gas emissions across the supply chain. 

• Smart Manufacturing for efficiency gains and GHG reduction.

• Greener/circular/sustainable materials.

We are also open to reviewing other areas on a case-by-case basis.

Given the ambitious goals of the Sustainable Manufacturing Challenge, could you elaborate on the criteria used to select projects for funding?

Two streams are available depending on the project size ($2 million to $10 million) and $10 million+. NGen’s contribution will be 35% of eligible project costs. NGen’s max contribution will be $5.25 million (35% of $15 million).

Projects should demonstrate:

NGen has a world-class project development team to work with and support companies in the development of project ideas, assist companies to find collaborative project partners, provide advice on how to develop an Intellectual Property plan, and to help connect with other funding sources. Companies can email us at [email protected] to seek support.

We are planning a collaboration event on May 15th to help companies find collaborative partners and connections to other funding sources.

The projects are assessed by an independent panel of assessors and the top-scoring applications will receive funding. Funding decisions will be made available in **. 

How critical is collaborative effort in driving the success of the Sustainable Manufacturing Challenge, and what roles do you see for industry, academia, and other stakeholders in these projects? 

The collaborative effort is crucial and will help develop industry relationships, build trust, and share knowledge, risk, investment, and the resulting benefits.  NGen has been running Collaborative R&D innovation programs for over five years, and the results show that projects that have meaningful collaboration have higher returns in terms of revenue, job creation and the ability for businesses to scale.  The funding de-risks the partnership and allows the teams to be more ambitious.

The projects should demonstrate the development and application of, ideally, a combination of Cleantech, Advanced Manufacturing Tech, and Greener Manufacturing Processes enabling sustainable manufacturing in Canada.

The inclusion of multiple industry partners is encouraged. Each project should include at least two (2) unassociated industry partners – a lead and partner(s). A formal collaborative partner contributes funding (cash) and background IP to the project, leading to the development of foreground IP. In addition, projects should include at least one (1) SME as a partner, with less than 500 employees globally as well as a manufacturer and demonstrate improving sustainable manufacturing processes.

We are able to directly fund the following types of organizations:

• For-profit organizations

• Not-for-profit organizations that facilitate and fund research and development on behalf of the ecosystem and whose funding and/or revenue is received primarily from private-sector or industry organizations

• Non-federal Crown corporations – funding is derived from commercial activities

• Indigenous organizations

Inclusion of academic/research organizations is encouraged and they can be funded through a subcontract to one of the industry partners.

NGen allows 100% stacking with other government funds.

Based on your experience, what are the major hurdles companies face in moving towards more sustainable manufacturing practices, and how does NGen support them in overcoming these obstacles?

Many successful manufacturers in Canada are already focusing on sustainability not just to meet the regulatory compliance requirements – but to drive long-term economic value and profitability from these initiatives.

However, in many cases, it is not easy to focus on these transformative initiatives. There are several barriers that manufacturers face while trying to pursue greener/sustainable manufacturing. They often range from:

• Lack of centralized responsibility for sustainability efforts in the company

• Organizational change resistance

• Presence of legacy assets and infrastructure

• Upfront costs

• Technology unfamiliarity

• Competing priorities

• Inadequate data

• Lack of KPIs to show impact

NGen sees an urgent need to work with its partners to help Canadian manufacturers and technology firms (both cleantech and advanced manufacturing technologies) collaborate, overcome barriers, and accelerate net-zero efforts. The SMC will complement other government initiatives in our country’s transition to net zero.

The Sustainable Manufacturing Challenge is our way of bringing the cleantech companies, manufacturers, and other advanced manufacturers together to collaboratively overcome these hurdles.  By providing financial support this allows us to de-risk the best solutions and accelerate them to commercial use. The funding allows the companies to be more ambitious and helps support collaboration.  We have a robust set of selection criteria that has been designed to ensure world-class projects receive funding.  We also continue to work with companies once they have been funded. After the project is closed, we continue to work with manufacturing companies to help them achieve their goals by seeking out follow-on funding opportunities, our Intellectual Property experts continue to provide guidance, we support the development of commercialization plans, and we have programs that focus on workforce development and training.

Looking ahead, how do you envision the future of manufacturing in Canada, particularly in the context of sustainability and technological innovation?

Canada is well-positioned to have a positive impact on the global sustainability challenge.  We are lucky to have ~ 2400 cleantech companies in Canada, and 13 of them made it to this year’s global top 100 list. It is promising to see several of these leading Canadian cleantech companies developing decarbonization and circularity solutions – specifically for the manufacturing sector. Many of these cleantech companies are innovating in Canada and trying to manufacture those cleantech solutions in our country.

In the future, I hope to see companies fully embrace the idea that focusing on environmental and technological innovation does not have an economic downside.  Doing this does not mean that we are making a trade-off. Increasingly, manufacturers are demonstrating that we can move to a more sustainable future and, at the same time, create economic value. In our current project portfolio, we have already seen the positive environmental impacts of new processes developed by different companies. Over 70% of existing NGen companies have a positive environmental impact.  Examples include reducing the tailings ponds by reducing water usage in the oil and gas industry through novel 3D printing, applying AI to reduce energy consumption and new processes that eliminate the use of hazardous solvents.

Canada excels in this space, and with the Sustainable Manufacturing Challenge, we are looking to accelerate the pace of change, create economic growth across the country, and enable interprovincial collaboration.

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