ABC Accelerator
The Accelerator for Zero Carbon Building Projects was launched in 2022 by a multidisciplinary team of Montreal-based change agents from Concordia University, GI Quo Vadis, National Bank of Canada, McCarthy-Tétrault, and Énergère in collaboration with Hydro-Québec and the Ville de Montréal.
Our vision
"To unite all stakeholders interested in advancing the decarbonization of the building sector and collaboratively break down the barriers hindering its progress, in both the private and public sectors."
Left to right: Natalie Voland and Ursula Eicker at the Next-Generation Cities Institute in Montreal. Concordia University/Lisa Graves
The accelerator
The genesis of the accelerator traces back to Ursula Eicker, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Smart, Sustainable, and Resilient Communities and Cities at Concordia, and Natalie Voland, president of the real estate development firm GI Quo Vadis. As members of the Montreal Climate Partnership, which aims to accelerate Montreal’s goal to reduce its GHG emissions by 55 percent by 2030, Eicker and Voland wanted to go beyond declaring climate goals and take action to speed up more sustainable buildings construction with lower carbon emissions.
Their vision materialized into the ABC Accelerator, bringing together a team of passionate specialists committed to realizing net-zero emissions for Montreal’s buildings by 2040. The team comprises Concordia's Next-Generation Cities Institute, GI Quo Vadis, National Bank of Canada, McCarthy Tétrault, and Énergère, in collaboration with Hydro-Québec and the City of Montreal.
Backed by the McConnell Foundation and the Trottier Family Foundation, this initiative represents a unique collaboration with specialized competencies that provides developers and the broader construction sector an array of tools, solutions, and resources to help catalyze a mindset shift and increase sustainability throughout the industry.
In the first stage, the accelerator team offered free consulting services to help developers adapt their projects to meet the city’s climate goals. Over the course of its development, the accelerator created governance structures around two pilot projects in Montreal, which were used to test and refine the accelerator's working strategies.
Call for projects
We invite real estate promoters who have projects on the Island of Montréal that have climate ambitions and are seeking to go further and faster to join this accelerator initiative.
In collaboration with our interdisciplinary team, we will evaluate proposals and select groups to collaborate to provide best practices, tools, creative finance opportunities and success metrics for your projects.
Meet us, and let's work together to achieve and surpass Montréal's climate plan goals.
Our leadership team
- Concordia University / NGCI: Ursula Eicker, Oriol Gavaldà
- GI Quo Vadis: Natalie Voland
- National Bank of Canada: René Demers, François Morin, Laurence Baudinet
- Énergère: Vincent Clusiau-Perreault, Francois Shink, Louis-Philip Bolduc
- McCarthy Tétrault: Annie Gagnon-Larocque, Marie Josée Marcoux
- Ville de Montréal: Jonathan Théorêt, Nancy Giguère
- Hydro-Québec: Linda Otis, Philippe Thomas-Côté
- Lemay: Hugo Lafrance
Our partners
ABC Accelerator is a collaboration of the following organizations:
Our supporters
Thank you to our generous supporters
