Canada has the science. The next challenge is turning green chemistry breakthroughs into commercial production, Canadian companies and global growth.
| THE CORE CHALLENGE | Moving from a successful laboratory result to reliable, cost-competitive commercial production. |
Canada has no shortage of promising ideas in green chemistry.
Across universities, research institutions and young companies, Canadian scientists and entrepreneurs are developing new materials, processes and technologies that can reduce waste, recover critical materials, replace fossil-based inputs and make industrial production cleaner.
But discovering a better chemistry is only the beginning.
The much harder journey is taking something that works in a laboratory and proving that it can work reliably, safely and economically at commercial scale. For many Canadian green chemistry companies, that is where the real challenge begins.
From the Lab to the Market
The path from scientific discovery to a commercial product is rarely a straight line. A technology may perform exceptionally well in a laboratory, but customers do not buy laboratory results. They need products and processes that can be manufactured consistently, meet specifications, integrate into existing operations and compete on cost and performance.
| DISCOVERY | PILOT | DEMONSTRATION | FIRST COMMERCIAL | SCALE |
Each step brings new questions.
Can the process be reproduced at larger volumes? Can feedstocks be sourced consistently? Does the chemistry behave differently in larger equipment? Can quality be maintained from batch to batch? What are the energy, water and material requirements? What does the process cost when it moves from kilograms to tonnes?
And perhaps most importantly: will customers use it?
Answering those questions requires much more than additional research. It requires engineering, equipment, infrastructure, people, capital—and customers willing to validate a new technology.
Canada’s “Missing Middle”
Canada has built an impressive ecosystem for research and early-stage innovation. We have excellent universities, research institutions, incubators, accelerators and public programs supporting the development of new technologies.
We also have established financing mechanisms for mature companies and large industrial projects.
The difficult space is often what comes between them.
This is sometimes described as the “missing middle” of Canada’s innovation system: the point where a technology has moved beyond early research but is not yet sufficiently proven or generating enough revenue to attract conventional financing.
The problem is not theoretical.
| 58% of companies identified insufficient funding for scale-up and growth as a major commercialization challenge. Source: Natural Resources Canada, 2025 Cleantech Industry Survey. |
For green chemistry companies, the challenge can be particularly acute because scaling often requires physical assets.
A software company can test a new product with relatively modest infrastructure. A chemistry company may need reactors, processing equipment, ventilation, analytical equipment, material handling systems, specialized engineering and space that can safely accommodate industrial processes.
Building all of that for a single pilot can be extraordinarily expensive. Yet without demonstrating the technology at greater scale, the company may struggle to attract the capital or customers it needs to move forward.
| It is a classic commercialization dilemma: you need scale to prove the business case, but you need capital to achieve scale. |
Why Shared Infrastructure Matters
One way to help companies cross this gap is to give them access to infrastructure they do not have to build themselves. That is the idea behind organizations such as RXN HUB in Kingston, Ontario.
RXN HUB was created specifically to help chemistry-enabled ventures validate, scale and deploy their technologies. Its Kingston facility provides access to wet labs, analytical capabilities, pilot bays and pre-commercial manufacturing space, alongside technical expertise and connections to industry, investors and other ecosystem partners. This matters because scale-up is not simply about renting more laboratory space.
Companies need environments where they can install larger equipment, test processes under realistic conditions, solve engineering problems and generate the operating data that customers, investors and lenders increasingly expect as technologies approach commercialization. Shared infrastructure can also allow companies to learn before making major capital commitments.
A pilot that identifies a problem is not necessarily a failed pilot. Discovering that a process needs to be redesigned before building a multimillion-dollar commercial facility can be enormously valuable. This is part of what it means to de-risk commercialization.
The Missing Middle Is About More Than Money
Capital is critical, but financing alone will not solve Canada’s scale-up challenge.
Companies also need specialized talent, engineering expertise, supply-chain partners, regulatory knowledge, testing facilities and—critically—early customers prepared to adopt Canadian technologies. That means thinking about commercialization as an ecosystem rather than a single funding program.
| RESEARCH | INFRASTRUCTURE | CAPITAL | EXPERTISE | CUSTOMERS |
When one of those pieces is missing, commercialization becomes slower, more expensive and riskier.
When they come together, companies have a much better chance of moving successfully from invention to industrial deployment.
The Economic Opportunity
There is also a bigger reason Canada should care about what happens after discovery.
The country that develops a technology is not automatically the country that captures its economic value.
If Canadian companies must go elsewhere to pilot, demonstrate, manufacture or finance their technologies, Canada risks doing the difficult work of creating the intellectual property while other jurisdictions capture the production, jobs, supply chains and exports that follow. For green chemistry, that opportunity could be significant.
The technologies discussed throughout this series—from advanced materials and bioplastics to critical-mineral recovery and biosurfactants—are not simply environmental solutions. They are potential building blocks for new industries and more competitive existing ones.
Scaling them in Canada can create skilled jobs, strengthen domestic supply chains and give Canadian companies a foothold in rapidly changing global markets.
From Great Science to Great Companies
Canada should continue investing in discovery. The next breakthrough in chemistry may open possibilities we cannot yet imagine.
But discovery alone is not enough.
If Canada wants to capture the economic and environmental benefits of green chemistry, we also need to become exceptionally good at what happens after the breakthrough.
That means giving innovators places to pilot and demonstrate their technologies. It means ensuring capital is available at the difficult stages between R&D and commercial revenues. It means connecting companies with industrial partners and first customers. And it means recognizing that commercialization is not simply the final step of research—it is a distinct challenge requiring its own infrastructure, expertise and investment.
| Canada has the science. The opportunity now is to build the companies, facilities and industries around it. |
COMING NEXT IN THE GREEN CHEMISTRY SERIES
The Capital Stack for Green Chemistry
Why different stages of commercialization require different kinds of capital, and how Canada can build a stronger financing pathway from the laboratory to industrial scale.
This article is part of a series exploring Canada’s opportunity in green chemistry ahead of RXN HUB’s Innovation Summit in Kingston on September 23, 2026.
Learn more and register for RXN HUB’s 2026 Innovation Summit here.