For a brief period in December 2021,
that was the advertised name of the new Centre
for Innovation and Clean Energy (CICE),
an arm's
length not-for-profit that the provincial and federal
governments have created in partnership with
Shell Canada—each kicking in a handsome $35 million to spend on
commercializing and scaling up new B.C.-based clean energy tech-
nologies. The name,
ZIP, was the dreamchild of branding consul-
tants who argued that the aspirational acronym for "zero is possible"
would be more memorable than the bureaucratic-sounding
CICE.
But before anyone could print up zippy business cards,
CICE execu-
tive director Dr. Ged McLean waved them off, countering that his
organization doesn't need an attention-seeking Twitter handle: it
exists to give out no-strings grants to companies that promise to
reduce B.C.'s carbon footprint while bolstering the provincial econ-
omy. Surely, McLean said, candidates for unconditional money can
be relied upon to remember an uninteresting name.
36 BCBUSINESS SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022
IS ZERO
POSSIBLE?
CANADA PROMISES NET-ZERO GREENHOUSE GAS
EMISSIONS BY 2050. B.C. VOWS AN 80-PERCENT CUT.
CAN IT BE DONE? AND IF SO, HOW?
b y R I C H A R D L I T T L E M O R E
I l l u s t r a t i o n b y B Y R O N E G G E N S C H W I L E R
ZIP.
