SSHRC-funded projects concerning natural resources and energy

Synopsis:

Environmental concerns have convinced many countries—including Canada—to transition to low-carbon, renewable energy sources, such as solar, hydro, bioenergy and wind. Yet producing and distributing renewable energy is labour intensive, and the challenge of finding workers with the right skills and training can hold back growth.

Recruiting women to the clean energy sector will be important to meeting future talent needs. Today, the number of women working in the energy industry around the world is extremely small. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates that women hold 20 to 25 per cent of jobs in the sector. Most of these jobs are lower-paid, non-technical administrative and public relations positions.

This project will collect and analyze existing research and literature on the challenges and opportunities for women’s employment in the renewable energy sector. It will also identify promising economic and financial programs and policies Canada can use to improve employment opportunities for women, and better shape its renewable energy industry for the future. This will help ensure Canada doesn’t miss out on opportunities for trade and growth in renewables.

“Canada will benefit tremendously by learning about policies and practices used by other countries to enable women to participate more in the renewable energy sector.”

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Synopsis:

Governments and industry have historically dominated natural resource development in Canada. This has resulted in the exclusion of Aboriginal Peoples from participating in decisions, and reaping the benefits of natural resource projects. This is starting to change with resource-sharing agreements, and opportunities for Aboriginal owned and operated corporations to collaborate with governments and industry. Yet long-term exclusion has led to serious gaps in skills, training and experience for Aboriginal Peoples to effectively manage and develop natural resources. 

This project will examine how natural resource industries, governments and Aboriginal Peoples are currently collaborating on constructive, feasible and mutually beneficial development opportunities. It will reveal Aboriginal Peoples’ strengths in developing natural resources. It will also identify gaps in knowledge, capacity and experience so that practical strategies can be proposed to fill them.

“By increasing Aboriginal control over the development of natural resources, we will help to create respect among industry, government and Aboriginal communities, and advance reconciliation with Aboriginal Peoples.”

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Synopsis:

In 2008, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated the Arctic contains approximately 13 per cent of the world’s recoverable, but as of yet undiscovered, oil reserves. Climate change and receding sea ice are making those reserves more accessible.

This project will summarize publicly available research on the status of oil development in the Arctic. It will identify likely consequences of developing the oil industry in Canada’s Arctic. It will also look at how these consequences might affect the country’s sovereignty and international relations. This knowledge synthesis will provide the information that policy-makers, Indigenous and northern communities, commercial interests and not-for-profit organizations will need to make informed decisions, capitalize on opportunities and manage risks.

“Particular attention will be paid to existing and potential border disputes, the rise of new international players in the Arctic region, and the likely risks involved in developing the oil industry in Canada’s Arctic.”

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Synopsis:

The social acceptability of natural resource development in Canada today is a major issue that can spell success or failure. In many cases, social acceptance is closely linked to the potential benefits—particularly financial—for communities affected by a resource development project.

Using an original interdisciplinary approach based on political economy and legal sciences, this project will focus on the  roles of regulatory norms—and their implications for government, industry and civil society (including First Nations)—in optimizing the benefits and social acceptability of development projects.

The literature review will target two key sectors of natural resource development in Canada: mines and renewable energy, specifically hydroelectricity and wind energy.

“In the current context of accelerating natural resource development and recognizing their strategic importance, a greater and renewed focus is needed on regulatory norms. This should include a critical analysis of the role of these norms and their implications on various stakeholders (e.g., federal, provincial or municipal governments; industry and its representatives; individuals affected by natural resource development; and civil society).”

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Synopsis:

Current practices in energy resource extraction, especially for carbon-intensive options like natural gas and oil, present a major challenge for global economic and social sustainability. Children and youth emerge as key population groups, both because energy resource extraction affects their well-being and  they stand as potentially powerful actors in implementing the transition to low-carbon goods and services. Despite this, they are often not included in social science literature on natural resources, in impact assessments or in national development plans.

This project will analyze current knowledge about the effects of energy resource extraction on children and youth’s biopsychosocial health and resilience. The collected research will be used to make concrete recommendations for policy-makers and practitioners to minimize the negative impacts of energy resource extraction on youth. The project will also provide insight on how to maximize strategies for engaging children and youth as leaders, innovators and change makers in the global energy transition.

“Children and youth… are noticeably absent from energy planning and policy, and national and international sustainable energy development plans. This project will help change that.”

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Synopsis:

Canada’s mining industry is a major contributor to Canada’s growth and prosperity, and the largest private sector employer of Aboriginal People. However, its physically invasive nature and potent economic presence in remote communities affect Aboriginal Peoples—particularly women—in marked ways. These include dramatic transformations in the physical environment, adverse impacts on the health of local populations, noticeable differences in the ways Aboriginal communities express and sustain their culture, and significant changes to the traditional roles of women.

This project will review current knowledge about Aboriginal experiences with the mining industry, specifically identifying Aboriginal women’s concerns. It will also determine initiatives that can empower women to benefit from the industry. The research team will use the results  to construct a set of practices to help the Canadian mining industry conduct commercial activities in more fruitful and ethical ways; in cooperation, rather than conflict, with Aboriginal communities.

“[Strategies] are needed to mitigate impending problems and ensure Aboriginal Peoples and the mining industry can prosper and collaborate effectively.”

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Synopsis:

Canada’s future environmental health and economic competitiveness hinge on the country’s ability to speed up clean innovation for the development, movement and use of energy and natural resources. Much of the needed innovation will come from private businesses and entrepreneurs, but governments at all levels also have an important role to play.

While a growing base of research and evidence exists about why and how smart public policies can boost clean innovation, it is largely fragmented and disorganized. This project seeks to change that by examining published academic research, policy reports, Canadian and international case studies and other literature. It will present combined findings on institutions and policies needed to drive clean innovation in Canada, and help inform policy decisions about emerging technologies.

“Public policy-makers and stakeholders will be able to use this research to inform decision-making on the policies and public institutions best suited to drive clean innovation in Canada’s abundant energy and natural resource sectors.”

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Synopsis:

It is a significant decision for any community to allow resource extraction using hydraulic fracturing. “Fracking” can bring economic benefits but also certain harms, especially when drilling happens close to residential areas. Provincial governments collect a great deal of information about the impacts of fracking, such as chemical and water usage, and waste. They have at their disposal a potential wealth of information that can help the general public better understand the effects of fracking activity.

This project will study the current academic understanding of disclosure practices and what makes them effective. It will also examine whether current disclosure practices in Canada make it possible for the public to easily track fracking activities and their consequences. The report will include a set of recommendations for provincial regulators responsible for information disclosure, academic audiences and the general public on how to improve current policies.

“The research can be used to help groups build websites… and support more informed discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of hydraulic fracturing.”

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Synopsis:

In Canada and around the world, natural resource development is increasingly the cause of social and political crises, even when this development fully complies with relevant laws. These crises reflect a lack of legitimacy of state law and governance of natural resources.

Using forestry in Canada as an example, this project will identify and compare changes in forest governance practices used to develop federal, provincial and territorial acts and regulations.

The knowledge stemming from this synthesis project will demonstrate how recent changes in forestry law will contribute to renewing governance practices related to forests  to promote fair and sustainable local development.

“There is a strong link between the legal framework and social consequences. The legal framework can be both the cause and solution of these problems. Ultimately, the goal of this knowledge synthesis is to improve our understanding of the environmental and social issues related to forestry and to ensure that the Canadian legal framework takes them into account.”

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Synopsis:

British Columbia’s government plans to rapidly expand the province’s unconventional natural gas industry. This will involve extracting natural gas from newly accessible reservoirs and transporting it to the northwest coast to be liquefied for overseas transport. The rapid expansion of this industry will have profound and markedly different impacts on gas-producing regions, transportation corridors, and processing and shipping communities.

This project will review existing literature on how unconventional natural gas development affects rural and remote communities. It will list the impacts on residents, workers, services and infrastructure. It will also highlight promising ways to reduce risk, and identify knowledge gaps to drive future research. The findings will contribute to the ongoing development of provincial and federal policy and monitoring frameworks.

“This research will help frame policy and provide important knowledge about the implications of the industry for other jurisdictions.”

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Synopsis:

Creating alternative energy production and distribution systems will be essential to helping Canada meet its commitments on climate change. Yet these new systems will not necessarily just “plug in” to the country’s existing energy infrastructure. Each will have their own environmental, social and economic impacts—meaning policy-makers will need new knowledge to make the best decisions.

This study will focus on the state of impact assessment research related to various renewable and alternative energy systems, including wind, geothermal, solar, and small-scale nuclear and hydro. It will specifically cover their environmental, economic, political, social and Aboriginal impacts. The findings will provide a portrait of impact assessment research, knowledge gaps and how environmental assessment can contribute to alternative energy development in Canada.

“Fossil fuels will still play a substantial role in Canada’s immediate energy future. However, oil and natural gas price instability, competition, environmental pressures, and the very real impacts of climate change will require changes to Canada’s energy mix.”

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Synopsis:

Over the past two decades, demand for Canada’s energy and minerals has risen worldwide. Investments and revenues were up, and many resource projects both in Canada and abroad found themselves at the centre of conflicts over their social and environmental impacts, as well as over revenue distribution.

This study will identify current knowledge on conflicts due to resource exploitation. It will determine research gaps, and review relevant policies that can help prevent or resolve these conflicts, especially those at the community-level. It will also examine the security dimensions of policies and conduct that host government authorities and extractive companies follow for resource development projects outside of Canada. Outputs of this knowledge synthesis will include a policy report of major findings and recommendations, and an academic paper summing up the state of knowledge on this topic. It will also include outreach through various web-based platforms to reach out to government, civil society organizations and resource company officials.

“The project is significant for three main reasons: robust linkages between extractive sectors and various forms of conflicts, the rise of social conflicts within the context of the recent global minerals boom, and the critical role played by corporations and governments in preventing or exacerbating conflicts.”

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Synopsis:

Natural resources can affect local economies in many ways. One of the main ways is through demand for labour, which can attract people from elsewhere and raise incomes. Spillover effects of these changes affect local residents and firms, even if they have no direct connection to the natural resource sector. The demand for labour in this sector can also change how income is distributed, impact the number of people living below the poverty line and influence educational pursuits. 

This project will review and classify literature by looking at how relevant papers represent resources, including endowments such as oil reserves; extraction, such as the number of wells drilled; or dependency, such as the share of earnings accounted for by mining. It will also consider the effects on employment and earnings and education rates.

This meta-analysis of previously published evidence will greatly improve the understanding of how natural resources affect labour markets.

“Our synthesis of the literature hopes to inspire future research and meta-analyses in each of these studied areas of local labour markets and natural resources.”

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Synopsis:

The forest products industry is one of Canada’s most important economic engines. It provides high-quality employment, generating wealth and enhancing the social fabric and well-being of communities from coast to coast. While Canada’s forest products sector is also one of the world’s most progressive examples of environmental stewardship, it is not clear what kinds of competitive advantages this brings.

Through a rigorous and systematic literature review, this study will explore in depth the links between environmental performance and competitiveness in the Canadian forest sector. It will identify critical knowledge gaps and propose a future research agenda. Knowledge gained from this review will be widely shared through journal articles, conference presentations and research and policy briefs—with the aim of determining how best to leverage the industry’s strong environmental standing in world markets.

“While historically the sector’s competitive advantage was linked to an abundant resource basket, such advantages are no longer certain in today’s complex globalized economy.”

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Synopsis:

The new requirement of including engagement with Indigenous communities in reviewing projects before they are developed is a cornerstone of Canada’s new policy on Responsible Resource Development. Existing research suggests that the corporate sector in Canada is proactively managing relationships with Indigenous communities. This includes first obtaining a “social license” to proceed with a development project.

However, tensions remain between the corporate sector and Indigenous communities on reducing the potential impacts of these developments. There are no consistent legal frameworks or regulatory policies in place to guide Corporate-Indigenous relations or the negotiation of Impact Management and Benefit Agreements. There is also no clarity on the official role of corporate “social licensing” in relation to the Crown’s legal duty to consult.

This project will synthesize existing literature and identify knowledge gaps on how the social licensing stage of major resource development projects in Canada’s North honours Indigenous rights, experiences and aspirations towards development. It will also look at how this stage of projects provides an opportunity for positive engagement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians.

“The importance of social licensing and Corporate-Indigenous relations in resource development projects is an emerging and understudied area of inquiry.”

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Synopsis:

Is a socially and environmentally responsible extractive industry possible? If so, how can it be achieved?

This project takes up the challenge of examining how to make Canada's quest for energy and natural resources compatible with Aboriginal Peoples' rights, expectations and demands. It will review how Indigenous communities are struggling to transform a historic relationship with the state into one based on mutual respect and understanding; one in which both parties are able to pursue their economic, social and political interests.

This project will review and synthesize the existing literature on Indigenous rights and the Canadian extractive industry, both at home and abroad, to identify knowledge gaps and highlight best practices in the field. It will review free, prior and informed consent, corporate social responsibility, and Indigenous governance innovation. With the use of international case studies, this project will identify promising policies and practices in Canada.

“A systematic analysis of the existing literature is sorely needed as a means of identifying the key variables that may explain different strategies and outcomes as well as their potential implications for Aboriginal-state relations and for relations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians.”

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Synopsis:

As global climate change worsens over the next century, many known and unknown shocks and stresses will test the resilience of communities. This project begins by reporting on what various scientific assessments have cited as the major shocks, such as ice storms and droughts, likely to arise in the delivery of energy and food to Canadians. In addition, the project will explore competing definitions of resilience, and report on the various frameworks being proposed and piloted to assess and encourage resilience in cities of all sizes.

The timing of the project is ideal, as two major communities of practice recently emerged around the measurement of resilience strategies. This augments much of the great work done on evaluating climate change adaptation.  The final synthesis report will enable future researchers and practitioners to focus their efforts when assessing and finding ways to increase the resilience of Canadian cities.

“Resilience is moving beyond buzzword status to become a core guiding principle and field of practice in the effort to ensure continued prosperity, security, and equity of Canadians in the challenging decades ahead.”

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Synopsis:

Northern and remote communities that are home to natural resources endure economic boom and bust cycles that accompany resource development and extraction. They stimulate economies, generating jobs and wealth, but they also strain communities, taxing their infrastructure and rendering them vulnerable to global shifts in consumption. The benefits and costs of resource development are not evenly distributed, and its negative impacts disproportionately affect diverse, marginalized groups of women and men.

This project will examine the impacts of resource extraction on various dimensions of inequality—including gender, age, ability, race, and Indigenousness—by using a feminist intersectional framework, and through a literature review, environmental scan, and web-based knowledge sharing. It will identify promising practices that can contribute to equitable, inclusive and sustainable development of Canada’s natural resources.

“This [feminist intersectional framework] approach encourages us to examine, rather than assume, the impact of inequalities on resource-based communities as well as the communities’ responses.”

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Synopsis:

The dominant form of energy of any given era shapes the characteristics and capacities of societies in an essential way. Energy is a key aspect of the fabric of our social experience and not just a neutral input helping run the engines of our economies and societies. Making the shift to new energy systems will require not only technological innovation and development, but also significant transformations in the way we manage our resources and live our lives.

Energy humanities is a field of scholarship that, like medical humanities and digital humanities before it, overcomes traditional boundaries between disciplines, and between academic and applied research. Using the energy humanities approach, this project will survey and synthesize current research on the socio-cultural and socio-political dimensions of energy impasse and transition. It will identify gaps in existing knowledge and areas where important work remains to be done. This project will focus on Aboriginal communities, social media and research-creation.

Results will be shared on enhanced versions of existing websites (such as petrocultures.com and afteroil.ca), listservs and social media, as well as through conference presentations and roundtable discussions. A key component of this project will be to network with community, industry and government.

“The developing field of ‘energy humanities’ has begun to help us understand more fully the many types of cultural impasse—habits and practices of being, believing and belonging—that stand in the way of the forms of energy transition we will need to undertake this century as we move to a post-fossil world.”

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Synopsis:

Canada’s resource-based communities face significant challenges, many of which are global in scope. Of main concern are economic vulnerabilities in the face of global competition and rapid technological change, social and gender inequalities, and environmental risks. Aboriginal communities face a particularly difficult situation, as they deal with critical socio-economic situations while reducing the impacts of resource extraction on cultural practices.

Using the socio-ecological systems (SES) framework, this project will undertake a multidisciplinary and multidimensional literature review to identify key dimensions of community resilience in the context of global change. This review will focus mainly on SES literature in a resource-dependent context. It will enable a better understanding of the socio-ecological dynamics and conditions supporting community resilience.

This project will allow researchers, policy-makers and other actors to better understand and confront the risks associated with global changes facing resource-based communities. It will help uncover specific policy actions and community strategies that support resilience. By investigating strategic partnerships with international research networks, this project also seeks to build Canadian research capacity in long-term monitoring of conditions in resource-based communities.

“The socio-ecological systems framework, pioneered by the Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom (2007, 2009) is designed to describe, diagnose, and prescribe the dynamics of coupled human and natural systems.”

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Synopsis:

Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, is becoming an increasingly important method of producing oil and gas across Canada. With little history of the widespread use of this technique, regulatory approaches are vastly different between provinces: from moratoriums in New Brunswick and Quebec, to business as usual in the West. Questions have been raised across the country about the safety of fracking. This includes concerns over emissions from wells, groundwater contamination, wastewater disposal and induced earthquakes.

Multiple sources of information have informed the differing regulatory approaches, including government review panels, environmental assessments and research papers from academia and non-governmental organizations.

This project will combine the existing science and engineering information available and produce an overview of the issues. It will look at the pros and cons of hydraulic fracturing, and present these in the context of policy choices. This synthesis will uncover gaps in knowledge, as well as in qualitative and quantitative data. In particular, it will look at data at the provincial level that may be influencing regulatory decisions, or resulting from regulatory decisions.

“By providing an objective summary of research already developed throughout North America, we will be in a good position to consider why regulatory authorities and governments have been approving such a wide range of field practices and reporting obligations, and also why they have reached vastly different conclusions on the use of hydraulic fracturing.”

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