Among industry leaders, there is a broad recognition that something needs to change. Deciding on a strategy isn't easy, but the forestry industry's experiences with environmental challenges seemed a natural source for guidance.
Janet Annesley, now vice-president of communications for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, remembers campaigning for Greenpeace on the Clayoquot Sound issue. “I went door to door when I was in eighth grade soliciting funds for Greenpeace and selling memberships,” she said. “For me, that issue has resonance.”
As she and others looked back at those days, they realized solutions don't come by stonewalling or shouting. They come by sitting down with critics for tough talks that result in mutual agreement on how to alter an industry's approach to the environment.
“The challenge is that unless you're engaging with a purpose, you're just talking,” said Ms. Annesley, who recently presented some of her findings to industry leaders.
“The lesson that is consistent in the forestry and the mining experience is that you cannot sloganeer, you cannot ‘spin' your way out of these types of issues,” she said. “The ultimate solutions are rooted in performance.”
MacMillan Bloedel, after all, managed to mollify its critics only when it pledged major change to the way it did business.
But given that oil sands criticisms strike at the heart of current industry performance – its use of energy and heavy landscape footprint – is industry willing to change?
Ms. Annesley says the answer is yes, especially as technological improvements allow it to clean up its act.
But environmental groups – including ones that have met with CAPP officials in the past six months – have their doubts. Simon Dyer, oil sands program director for the Vancouver-based Pembina Institute, recalls a catchphrase once used to describe forestry companies: “Talk and log” – a strategy that involves paying lip service to problems while continuing business as usual. He has seen energy companies use it, too.
One issue matters more to groups like Pembina than any other: How quickly Alberta develops its oil sands. The want the province to slow down, and have been begging the province to do so for nearly a decade. But the idea remains essentially off limits to oil sands backers.
“In many instances, the solutions are there. But there's a lack of political will to implement them,” Mr. Dyer said.
For its part, industry says it's willing to broach the issue – but within limits that may constrain the effectiveness of any dialogue. “We must ... discuss the pace of oil sands development in terms of energy demand, other supply options and other societal goals such as benefiting from a growing economy,” Ms. Annesley said.
“Looking at oil sands issues through one lens is easy. Balancing our need to protect the environment, grow the economy and ensure reliable sources of energy is not.”
Back to the future
Little more than a decade after Mr. Stephens sat down with that protester, he finds himself in a new environmental battle. He is a director of TransCanada Corp., whose pipelines serve the oil sands and whose fortunes ride on their success.
His knows the value of an industry confronting its environmental demons.
“This is of primary importance to the future of the industry and [TransCanada] ... We spend a great deal of time talking about it,” Mr. Stephens said.
“Capital is a coward and it runs away from risk,” he noted. “If [the oil sands] is perceived to be ‘risky,' if it is perceived to be a candidate for losing its social licence, capital will go someplace else. And the jobs and the economic impact will go with it.”
