Progress on greening procurement: Conventional on-road fleet
The Government of Canada (GC) is greening its on-road fleet by purchasing zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) wherever suitable options are available. These purchases include plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles (PHEVs), battery electric vehicles ( BEVs) and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
The federal government owns a wide variety of light-duty and larger medium and heavy-duty vehicles to support internal operations and deliver services to Canadians. Vehicles are used by:
- food inspectors and public health officials for site visits
- border officers to maintain security
- scientists and parks officers to study and protect our vast resources
Since 2025, 100% of new conventional on-road fleet vehicle purchases will be ZEVs, with the objective that the government’s fleet will be 100% ZEV by 2030.
These targets currently apply to the approximately 12,629 light-duty vehicles in the government’s conventional on-road fleet. The targets apply to all new conventional fleet light-duty purchases where one or more suitable options per vehicle group are available and able to meet operational requirements. For example, there are currently many ZEV options available for smaller vehicles (passenger cars and SUVs) but limited options for larger vehicles (vans, pickups).
The conventional fleet also includes just over 5,400 large, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, or 30% of the fleet. For these vehicles, at least 40% of new purchases should be zero-emission vehicles by 2030.
The following figures provide an overview of the conventional on-road fleets and the progress toward targets.
For more information, refer to the:
- Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory page on the Open Government portal
- the Greening Government Strategy
As of 2024-25, federal organizations continued to green their conventional light-duty fleets as shown in Table 4.
| Federal organization | Number of internal combustion engine vehicles | Number of green vehicles |
|---|---|---|
| National Defence | 2650 | 1004 |
| Parks Canada | 1086 | 413 |
| Correctional Service Canada | 621 | 560 |
| Fisheries and Oceans Canada | 662 | 227 |
| Canada Food Inspection Agency | 844 | 146 |
| Canada Border Services Agency | 553 | 328 |
| Environment and Climate Change Canada | 508 | 218 |
| Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada | 457 | 178 |
| Indigenous Services Canada | 284 | 101 |
| Transport Canada | 128 | 231 |
| All other organizations | 866 | 564 |
When conventional vehicles are ready to be replaced, the Greening Government Strategy requires that federal organizations prioritize zero-emission vehicles for purchases where suitable options are available and consider operational feasibility:
- For light-duty fleets, 100% of new purchases should be zero-emissions vehicles as of 2025.
- For commercial medium- and heavy-duty fleets, at least 40% of new purchases should be zero-emission vehicles by 2030.
As shown in Figure 5 for 2024-25, 75% of all conventional light-duty fleet purchases were zero-emission or hybrid-electric vehicles and 7% of commercial medium- and heavy-duty fleet purchases were zero-emission vehicles.
Figure 5 - Text version
The inner circle of the sunburst graph shows the proportion of vehicle purchases that were light-duty and medium-to-heavy-duty. For each duty class, the outer circle shows the proportion of purchases that had zero-emission, hybrid-electric or internal combustion engine powertrains.
| Purchases for the federal conventional on-road fleet | Number of vehicles purchased | Percentage of total purchases |
|---|---|---|
| Light-duty | 1,252 | 72 % |
| Medium-heavy duty | 481 | 28 % |
| Total | 1,733 | 100% |
| Light-duty vehicle purchases | Number of vehicles | Percentage of purchases |
|---|---|---|
| Zero-emission vehilces | 630 | 36 % |
| Hybrid-electric vehicles | 305 | 18 % |
| Internal combustion engine vehicles | 317 | 18 % |
| Medium to heavy-duty vehicle purchases | Number of vehicles | Percentage of purchases |
|---|---|---|
| Zero-emission vehilces | 33 | 2% |
| Hybrid-electric vehicles | 0 | 0% |
| Internal combustion engine vehicles | 448 | 26% |
Figure 6 - Text version
The bar chart shows the number of zero-emission, hybrid-electric and internal combustion light-duty vehicles purchased by federal organization in 2024-25.
| Federal organization | Number of internal combustion engine vehicles | Number of hybrid-electric vehicles | Number of zero-emission vehicles |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Defence | 242 | 59 | 117 |
| Correctional Service Canada | 30 | 129 | 17 |
| Parks Canada | 36 | 44 | 77 |
| Canada Border Services Agency | 0 | 27 | 93 |
| Fisheries and Oceans Canada | 5 | 2 | 58 |
| Environment and Climate Change Canada | 0 | 8 | 42 |
| Transport Canada | 0 | 1 | 43 |
| Royal Canadian Mounted Police | 1 | 33 | 7 |
| Indigenous Services Canada | 0 | 0 | 30 |
| Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada | 0 | 0 | 22 |
| Employment and Social Development Canada | 0 | 0 | 21 |
| Canada Food Inspection Agency | 3 | 0 | 17 |
| Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada | 0 | 0 | 18 |
| Health Canada | 0 | 0 | 17 |
| Natural Resources Canada | 0 | 0 | 17 |
| Shared Services Canada | 0 | 0 | 17 |
| National Research Council Canada | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Public Services and Procurement Canada | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| Canada Revenue Agency | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Canadian Space Agency | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Public Safety Canada | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Key results
- As of the end of fiscal year 2024-25, 31.4 % of the GC conventional light-duty fleet was green: 14.0 % zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) and 17.4 % hybrid-electric vehicle (HEV). National Defence has the largest conventional fleet and the most HEVs and ZEVs. Of the top ten largest fleet owning federal organizations, Transport Canada has the highest percentage of HEVs and ZEVs.
- In 202 4-25, 75% of the GC new purchases of light-duty vehicles were green ( 50% ZEVs, 25% HEVs) in segments where suitable options were available. Federal organizations purchased and received a total of 630 ZEVs and 305 HEVs.
- In the medium to heavy-duty segment, 33 ZEVs were purchased despite challenging market availability.
More information
- The Centre for Greening Government continues to work with Public Services and Procurement Canada, Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and federal fleet-owning organizations to improve the procurement and policy tools available to guide federal organizations in their actions to meet the targets outlined in the Greening Government Strategy. These improvements include:
- the development of tools for forward-looking market analysis and to calculate the total cost of ownership, which allow federal organizations to assess future availability and compare the total costs of purchasing and operating green vehicles to the costs for internal combustion engine vehicles
- the development of guidance for strategic fleet green planning, enabling federal organizations to outline their transition plans to achieve the targets
- enhanced green vehicle procurement options for light-, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles
- reporting tools for GHG emissions and vehicle inventories that allow federal organizations to organize the data required to report progress toward purchasing ZEVs
- NRCan’s federal vehicles and fleets page, which provides information about fleet telematics analysis and assessments of the readiness of charging infrastructure
- Greening Government Fleets, which is a guide published by NRCan