Ecologic Institute's Elizabeth Zelljadt provided an overview of the ways various emission trading systems (ETS) use revenues from the auctioning of allowances as part of a panel discussion on revenue recycling at the Ontario Cap-and-Trade Forum in Toronto. The event brought together government decision-makers as well as analysts and Canadian industries affected by the province's emissions trading system, which entered into force January 2017 and held its first allowance auction in March 2017.

Zelljadt's presentation added to the discussion of what the province will do with revenues from the sale of emission permits - she described the rules around auction revenue use in the EU ETS, as well as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and Alberta's carbon pricing program. All of these redirect the funds toward further greenhouse gas reductions at least to some extent, and Ontario's government intends to do the same. It earned C$472 million in March of 2017, the first of 4 annual allowance auctions. Other panelists described emission reduction projects the money will be used for, and praised regulators' approach of earmarking all revenues for such projects rather than allowing them to go into the province's general budget as many EU Member States do.

The cap-and-trade event involved over 100 participants and was aimed at familiarizing Ontario companies new to carbon markets with the logistics of emissions trading and the rules of the new program.