Boréalis, a leading provider of stakeholder engagement applications, announced that its platform has helped Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM) to become more successful in fulfilling its community commitments in Nunavut. In addition, AEM has expanded its use of the Boréalis platform to include more projects in Ontario. Using the Boréalis stakeholder engagement software, Agnico’s Community Relations team has successfully improved its strategy by aligning it with community feedback and engagement.
“The ability to clearly communicate and provide more concrete examples of how our community investments, programs and engagement translate into measurable social outcomes is essential to validate our efforts to create shared value and reflect what matters most to the organization and our key stakeholders,” says Patrice Gilbert, VP Health and Safety and Community Relations at AEM.
AEM, headquartered in Toronto, has been operating in Nunavut since 2007. The organisation has always been committed to making a significant and positive difference in the communities where it operates. To ensure success, the team needed to apply the same rigour to evaluating their social performance as applied to all other aspects of the business, easily link community outcomes and business value, to create shared value. They chose Boréalis to help with the management and measurement of their community relations programs and data.
Nunavut is the northernmost territory of Canada – and one of the world’s most remote areas – with a population of 35,000, most of which are Inuit. Inuit Impact and Benefit Agreements (IIBA) are part of Nunavut’s legislation in order to ensure that Inuit have input on what is happening on their land. Through these agreements, AEM ensures that business opportunities, employment and training opportunities arising from the projects benefit the communities of the Kivalliq.
AEM uses Boréalis to ensure consistent, tracked and reportable community engagement. They’ve successfully aligned their strategy with community feedback and have stronger engagement with the Inuit communities, are operating more efficiently overall and contributing to the success of the projects in the remote area of Nunavut. With their expansion, AEM hopes to use Boréalis as an Early Warning System for social risk management. This will allow them to develop a proactive approach to their relationships, and by having a better understanding of community irritants to mitigate or minimising negative impacts and prevent social conflicts before they occur.
