Sustainability Initiatives help Hydro Ottawa Secure Another Top Spot on Canada’s Greenest Employers List
April 22, 2025
Hydro Ottawa Holding is celebrating its inclusion as one of Canada’s Greenest Employers. This accolade highlights Hydro Ottawa’s deeply rooted commitment to achieving net-zero operations by 2030 and its comprehensive approach to environmental responsibility.
Sustainability is a core value deeply integrated into all aspects of the organization. This commitment is evident in its ambitious goal to electrify its fleet, encompassing light, medium, and heavy-duty trucks with electric and hybrid technologies.
Beyond its fleet, Hydro Ottawa has implemented a four-stream waste collection system, utilizes geothermal heating and cooling in its buildings, employs water conservation systems, and adheres to a comprehensive green procurement strategy. Its subsidiary, Envari Energy Solutions, further contributes by providing sustainable energy solutions and innovative lighting design.
The utility integrates climate change considerations into its infrastructure planning by incorporating low-carbon techniques in its substation designs and, where feasible, creating pollinator meadows around new facilities to enhance biodiversity.
Quick Facts
- Hydro Ottawa is hyper-focused on making it easier for organizations in its community to participate in a sustainable energy future. In 2024, Hydro Ottawa was selected by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) to deliver the Ottawa Retrofit Accelerator program (ORA), a $10 million program running until March 31, 2027, to help commercial, institutional, mid-rise and high-rise residential buildings receive expert guidance to implement deep retrofits that significantly reduce their emissions.
- Hydro Ottawa partnered with Ottawa Community Housing to reduce its carbon footprint across its portfolio of properties through the Ottawa Retrofit Accelerator (ORA) program, and expanding on its existing partnership to take advantage of future energy-saving projects like EV charging infrastructure, solar panels, building automation systems, and the installation of heat pumps for efficient heating and cooling.
- Hydro Ottawa is the first Canadian municipally-owned utility to issue a Green Bond, which supported the refurbishment of hydro assets and construction of its LEED Gold campuses. Additionally, Hydro Ottawa is the first Canadian utility to earn ISO 55001 certification for asset management. These initiatives align with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, building a more peaceful and prosperous world.
- Portage Power, Hydro Ottawa’s renewable generation subsidiary, is Ontario’s largest municipally-owned producer of green power, with hydroelectric, solar and landfill gas-to-energy facilities generating 131 megawatts of renewable electricity (enough to power 110,000 homes annually). In total, Portage Power’s renewable generation capacity has increased six-fold in just 13 years.
- Hydro Ottawa’s two operations centres and main office are LEED Gold Buildings certified, a globally recognized benchmark of sustainability achievement for green buildings.
- Solar energy generation at Hydro Ottawa’s new facilities offsets approximately 18 per cent of the energy demand at its East Campus and 100 per cent at its South Campus.
- Hydro Ottawa diverts more than 90 per cent of its waste from landfill, and works with scrap metal companies to perform metal reclamation of copper wire, steel and aluminum from its small transformers and meters.
- Envari Energy Solutions, Hydro Ottawa’s energy management subsidiary, continues to upgrade a City of Ottawa wastewater treatment plant by replacing the plant’s three cogeneration engines, and adding a fourth, which will eliminate 1,565 tonnes of CO2 per year and reduce utility costs by $80M over 25 years.
