We are a regional climate institution that invests in low-carbon solutions in the Greater Montreal area. We lead and collaborate with key stakeholders from the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors who bring forward ideas and opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We advance the most promising concepts by investing, providing grants, influencing policies, and delivering programs. We are particularly interested in ideas that offer benefits beyond reducing emissions, such as improving people’s health, creating new green jobs, building urban resilience, and contributing to a fair society.

Our interventions are aligned with municipal and regional strategies to fight climate change.

In 2016, the Trottier Family Foundation evaluated the possibility of replicating the success of The Atmospheric Fund (TAF) in Toronto by creating a climate fund in Montreal. With support from Dunsky Consulting and in partnership with the Clean Economy Fund, the idea progressed and spread to several Canadian cities. Following a series of consultations, May 2017 saw the birth of the Low Carbon Cities of Canada (LC3) network.

In 2018, the LC3 network—which includes the cities of Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver—requested funding of $183M from the federal government. This request was accepted and was combined with a $1 billion endowment granted to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) for the Green Municipal Fund. The FCM then became a partner of the LC3 network, and the Montreal Climate Centre (now the Greater Montreal Climate Fund) was launched.

The Greater Montreal Climate Fund is financed by an endowment of $32.5M from the federal government, which allows the organization to ensure the permanence of its operations and the lasting impact of its activities. This funding is the strength of the GMCF, for several reasons:

1. Stability: The GMCF self-finances its operations through the return on investment of its endowment, which ensures the stability and sustainability of the organization.
2. Independence: The fight against climate change is long-term, and its funding is at the mercy of changes in governments at all levels. Our funding in perpetuity gives us independence, agility, and the power to act, regardless of the political context.
3. Leverage: The endowment provides us with significant leveraging power to raise public and private capital and significantly increase our activities.
4. Double impact: The endowment serves as capital for mission-related impact investments, while the returns are used to finance our programs and grants, thereby doubling our impact.

The Greater Montreal Climate Fund is modeled after The Atmospheric Fund (TAF), a regional climate agency that invests in and helps to scale up low-carbon solutions for the Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton. TAF has successfully advanced urban climate action in Toronto for 28 years. While the city’s population has increased by 20% since 1991, Toronto has reduced its carbon emissions by 25%, in part thanks to the work of TAF.

In 1991, TAF received an endowment of $23M from the City of Toronto and has been self-financing ever since. In 2016, the Province of Ontario provided an additional endowment of $17M for TAF to serve the entire Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton. To date, TAF has invested three times its original funding while maintaining its initial working capital. The next logical step is to apply this model—and its proven implementation strategies—to urban centres across Canada. TAF is an active member of the LC3 network and serves as a mentor to new centres like the GMCF.