Back to Basics: Creating Value through Environmental Assessment
DATE: October 19th – 21st, 2022
LOCATION: York University, Convention Centre, 2nd floor at the Second Student Centre
OVERVIEW:
This year’s conference theme explores the value and importance of impact assessment in Ontario by exploring the fundamentals of good impact assessment practice. A diversity of perspectives, case studies and best practices will highlight how environmental assessment planning creates value for governments, proponents, regulators, NGOs, Indigenous Peoples, and the general public who are affected by project proposals. At this conference, presenters will contemplate how to get better decisions that minimize the risks with construction and operation; create more certainty for the future permitting and regulatory phase that follows; and how host communities of projects gain benefits (both financial and otherwise) than would otherwise not be achievable through a regulatory licensing approach. In other words, we will examine the costs and benefits of a well-conducted assessment process.
Topics include:
- Explore how efforts to modernize the Environmental Assessment Act (EAA) in Ontario as well as the federal Impact Assessment Act promote environmental planning processes that in turn create value for proponents, the general public and other stakeholders, regulators and Indigenous Peoples.
- Highlight case studies where technical studies as part of impact assessments contribute to broader sustainability such as Corporate Social Responsibility and the Social License to Operate. For example, how are social, health, and Indigenous-led assessments in Ontario contributing to broader objectives?
- Explore best practices and case studies for stakeholder engagement: how do we address misinformation in the context of EA? What role does joint fact-finding play in combating misinformation and creating meaningful engagement?
- Explore how the identification and evaluation of alternatives contributes to corporate, political, and societal goals including the public interest, economic development, climate change, and sustainability.
- Explore how Western science and Indigenous Knowledge Systems are being used in impact assessment including to address alternatives assessment, baseline data gathering, and the assessment of effects.
- Explore how adaptive management is being used to manage the uncertainty and lack of consensus around the assessment of impacts. How can Indigenous communities, the general public, and stakeholders be engaged as adaptive management approaches are used to manage impacts post-approval?
- Explore how cumulative effects, climate change, and sustainability are being assessed. Highlight case studies that exemplify best practices for cumulative effects assessment and how climate change and sustainability are being addressed in projects in Ontario.
This conference has a wide appeal to those working in different disciplines and sectors and is broad enough to engage with a range of practitioners, Indigenous Peoples, academics, and others with the goal of improving impact assessment practice.
2022 Video Presentations
| Session 1B: How Does Assessment Add Value | https://youtu.be/pcp_ateQcs0 |
| Session 2: Assessments in the Ring of Fire | https://youtu.be/5c91mkbz25Y |
| Session 3: Improving the Discipline of Socio-Economic Assessment | https://youtu.be/U2cQkWi7678 |
| Session 4: Landfill Planning in Ontario | https://youtu.be/zKl5OBRHqAg |
| Session 5B: Indigenous-led EA in Ontario | https://youtu.be/F6boLDLTUSk |
| Session 6: Perspectives on the Future of IA | https://youtu.be/xRh25pJfRxU |
| Session 7: Updates from IAAC | https://youtu.be/LG_OuYMTmjA |
| Session 8A: Including Varied Voices in EA | https://youtu.be/xBD6B5v0Eq4 |
2022 Conference Presentations
Session 1.B.1: The Role of Impact Assessment in a World in Crisis
Session 1.B.2: Evaluating Sustainable Design Alternatives in the Nuclear Industry
Session 1.B.3: The ITC Lake Erie Connector: A Great IA Process...A Little Known Project
Session 1.B.4: Sustainability-based Guidance for Assessing Canadian Coal Phase-out Policy
Session 2.1: Indigenous-driven Infrastructure Development: Insights from Proponent First Nations on Road Development in the Ring of Fire Area
Session 2.2: Health Impact Assessment in the Federal Impact Assessment Process: A Value Added
Session 2.3: Keepers of the Circle
Session 3.1: Exploring Gender-Based Analysis Plus in Impact Assessment
Session 3.2: Collaborative Social Research: A Holistic Socio-economic Study for the Webequie Supply Road Project
Session 3.3: Engaging Indigenous and Western Knowledge Systems in Socio-Economic Baseline Development
Session 3.4: Equity, Practicality and Inclusive Research: GBA+ Analysis in Socio-economic Baseline Studies
Session 5.B.1: Grand Council Treaty #3 – Anishinaabe Inakonigaawin and Environmental Assessments
Session 6.1: A Sustainability Assessment Framework to Guide Decision-making About Rare Earth Element Mining
Session 6.2: Environmental Assessment as a Tool for Managing Impacts on Wetlands: Understanding Current Practice in the Mining Sector
Session 6.3: Highway 401 Expansion Project: Erosion and Sediment Control Lessons Learned on a Large-Scale Transportation Project
Session 6.4: Climate Vulnerability and Risk Assessment: Current Practice and Implications for Environmental Assessment
Session 7.1: Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
Session 8.A.1: Integration of Indigenous Communities into the Marathon Palladium Project Environmental Assessment
Session 8.A.2: Mediation and Impact Assessment: Revisiting Prospects for Sustainability Goals
Official Conference Sponsors
Thank you to the following sponsors of the 2022 Conference:
