ID: 2238
Presenting Author: Eve McLeod Norberg
Session: 550 - (Re)building trust and transparency to navigate complex energy transitions
Status: pending
This presentation will highlight how sustainability-based assessments can build public trust in decision-making, and how to apply generic sustainability objectives to a case study.
The world of impact assessment is dynamic and ever evolving, but despite many improvements over the years, there is a general lack of public trust in the process’s ability to provide outcomes that are in the public interest. This is even more evident in sectors where projects have historically been a source of environmental or socio-economic degradation, such as rare earth element mining. As Canada focuses on regulatory efficiencies and advancing the next generation of mining projects necessary to support the demand for the energy transition, technology, and AI, transparency and consistency between projects will be critical to ensuring public trust and a robust impact assessment process. This presentation will outline how the pathway to building public trust in the process is through application of a comprehensive and transparent sustainability-based framework that prioritizes early and ongoing public engagement. It will then explore how to specify this framework to the context of Canadian rare earth element mining projects, and through the application of the specified framework to a case study, it will identify strengths and weaknesses in the current approach. This presentation aims to highlight key objectives for assessment of mining projects that prioritize overall well-being and promote public trust in decision-making.
Eve McLeod Norberg is an impact assessment practitioner and a student pursuing her master’s in environmental studies in Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterlo