environmental approvals Archives - International Mining

Stantec, a global leader in sustainable design and engineering and one of the largest environmental services firms in Canada, says it has assisted Generation PGM Inc and its Marathon palladium-copper project in becoming the first mine in Ontario’s history to obtain environmental approval following a Joint Review Panel.

The project, a platinum group metals (PGM) and copper mine development and milling operation near the Town of Marathon in north-western Ontario, recently received approval from the federal and provincial governments’ coordinated Environmental Approval (EA) process under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and Ontario’s Environmental Assessment Act. The project is the first mining project in Ontario to be assessed through a Joint Review Panel pursuant to the Canada-Ontario Agreement on Environmental Assessment Cooperation (2004).

Generation PGM is a wholly owned subsidiary of Generation Mining.

Stantec led and coordinated preparation of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) Addendum and various technical reports as part of a collaboration with Generation PGM and other consultants. The firm’s experts completed technical assessments for the EIS Addendum, responded to information requests from the panel and shared expertise at the public hearing held by the Joint Review Panel.

Stantec’s discipline leads presented their conclusions and recommendations regarding the project as expert witnesses at the hearing in the areas of hydrology, hydrogeology, air quality, greenhouse gases, acoustics and socio-economics. The firm also coordinated preparation of the EIS Addendum based on updates to existing baseline conditions, changes to regulatory standards and refinements to the project relative to the original EIS – which was submitted in 2012 and supported by True Grit Engineering Ltd (acquired by Stantec in 2018). Generation PGM also retained Stantec to support consultation with agencies and Indigenous communities, consider comments and traditional knowledge, and scope follow-up programs and environmental management plans.

Stantec’s Chris Powell, Senior Environmental Planner, said: “This is a big win for the Marathon project, and Stantec is thrilled to have been a part of this process to leverage our expertise in mining and environmental assessment for Generation PGM in their efforts to proceed to the next phase of the project. This critical minerals project will provide a lot of opportunity for the region and benefits to the local Indigenous community, Biigtigong Nishnaabeg. I’m proud of our team for the hard work and dedication to deliver on such an important project.”

The Joint Review Panel’s public review process included 10 months of written filings and a public hearing consisting of 19 oral hearing days. The panel received input from more than 50 individuals, including representatives from Indigenous groups, government agencies and interest groups. This Joint Review Panel process was among the largest regulatory hearings of 2022. To secure the panel’s approval, Generation PGM and Stantec collaborated with experts from Ecometrix, Knight-Piésold, Northern Bioscience and WSP, with legal support from Cassels.

Drew Anwyll, Chief Operating Officer of Generation Mining, said: “We greatly appreciate the work of the Stantec team, who significantly contributed through the EIS Addendum and the Joint Review Panel hearings. Stantec worked side-by-side with the Generation team and other consultants and advisors with a ‘one-team approach’. Stantec stewarded us through this and made this less of a process. We are extremely proud to be the first mine in Ontario to be approved through the Joint Review Panel.”

Stantec says it continues to highlight its strong environmental assessment expertise and presence in north-western Ontario, following the success of the Greenstone Gold Mine’s Hardrock Project Federal EIS Approval in 2018 and Provincial EA Approval in 2019. For the Marathon project, Stantec continues to assist Generation PGM with components of its ongoing baseline monitoring and regulatory permitting work, led from Stantec’s Thunder Bay office.

Generation PGM will now proceed to obtain the necessary permits for construction and operation of the mine. The Marathon property covers a land package of approximately 220 sq.km. The processing plant will operate at approximately 9.2 Mt/y of ore, produce approximately 87,000 t/y of copper concentrate, and employ up to 1,000 workers during construction and 375 workers during operation.

RPMGlobal believes it has the specialists to make the type of environmental, social and governance (ESG) projections the mining industry is after, having recently acquired Nitro Solutions and established a dedicated division for this market area.

This transaction has provided RPMGlobal with a differentiated offering in the ESG consulting space, according to Ngaire Tranter, Founder of Nitro Solutions and now Head of RPMGlobal’s ESG division.

“Where Nitro and now RPMGlobal is different, is: ‘we are mining’,” she told IM. “We’re mining specialists that happen to do ESG, not the other way round.

“Our team is preferentially selected from people that have been on mine sites. We draw on this expertise to ensure any advice we provide is pragmatic.”

Tranter, a fourth-generation miner, is keen to get this point across given the ESG focus that has swept through the sector in the past few years.

*Ngaire Tranter, Founder of Nitro Solutions and now Head of RPMGlobal’s ESG division*

This has seen miners – big and small – announce ambitious sustainability goals involving Scope 1, 2 and (possibly) 3 emissions; majors pledge to become more transparent in the way they deal with stakeholders; and companies ensure that social value is created for employees, contractors and affected communities at all stages of the mining process.

The pool of consultants claiming to have the expertise to advise companies on the correct strategies to achieve such goals in this brave new ESG-focused mining world has expanded significantly.

This ESG demand trend led to RPMGlobal’s June acquisition of Nitro, but Tranter says her team – which offers a range of services from environmental approvals, audits, economics, policy and legislation advice to compliance reporting and impact assessments – is one of the few on the market offering tailored and practical mining advice that appreciates the reality of mining.

“We offer holistic services,” she said. “We work with that technology piece and use it in an advisory context to get the correct feedback for clients,” she said. “The ability to leverage off that deep domain mining expertise really makes that technology practical and purpose designed to deliver solutions.

“We’re problem solving with our own in-house mining expertise.”

That problem solving piece has become a lot easier for the former Nitro team after joining RPMGlobal, with Tranter saying there is a “fantastic” technology foundation for the company’s ESG division to leverage off.

What started with the recent addition of electric vehicle support for its HAULSIM and SIMULATE haulage simulation platforms – to allow trade-offs between diesel, hybrid or all-electric haulage scenarios – is set to expand further through organic developments and possibly M&A.

The financial budgeting tools of XERAS Enterprise, for instance, could be used for future emission budgeting, according to Tranter, while some of the pit simulation tools RPMGlobal offers could come into the mine rehabilitation and closure part of the ESG equation.

It is this latter area that Tranter believes will grow in significance and demand in future years – an area RPMGlobal is adequately qualified to advise on.

“That rehab and closure piece is going to grow further and further, and that will be brought into the discussion much earlier in the process,” she said. “Fortunately, our models look a lot further out than what is happening next quarter or even what might be happening in 20 years’ time. For things like groundwater models, we are looking to when these levels may reach a quasi-equilibrium. This involves looking out plus-900 years in some cases.”

*An open-pit coal mine partially restored in the province of Leon, northwest Spain (credit: RPMGlobal)*

Not only is RPMGlobal equipped with the tools and models to take a long-term view that can be trusted by mining customers, it is also able to present the results in a way that everyone can understand, according to Tranter.

“Miners inherently want to do the right thing, even if the perception in certain quarters does not align with this fact,” she said. “We are able to convey ESG considerations effectively to these companies by putting them in financial metrics everyone can understand.

“We provide a financial trade-off that allows companies to make an informed business decision about the decision to pursue or avoid a particular aspect of a project.”

This is increasingly important in a market where the legislation and regulations governing mining companies changes from region to region, as does the expectations of communities and stakeholders.

Doing the right thing by the law may not always be viewed as ‘the right thing’ by stakeholders.

“Back when I started over 15 years ago, ESG was just about doing the bare minimum to move the project forward,” Tranter said. “People now recognise the importance of corporate reputational risk and the implications of not doing the right thing.”

RPMGlobal’s ESG practice continues to use baselines such as the Equator Principles and the International Finance Corp’s Sustainability Policies and Standards to provide the required transparency miners need to do business in major markets and to access capital, but the company is aware and conscious that the sector is continuing to evolve.

“In Australia, for example, a company is currently going through the court system for its ‘net zero’ claims’,” Tranter said. “The way the world has shifted in terms of transparency means there are great examples all over the world for us to advise our clients on.”

It isn’t all ‘defensive’ ESG work in RPMGlobal’s wheelhouse, with the company often providing ESG input for due diligence work related to M&A as well as lenders engineering services for mining and downstream mineral processing projects.

“ESG is a significant piece in the due diligence phase of M&A,” Tranter said. “It’s often about a company’s appetite for risk. A smaller entity, for instance, might have a greater appetite for risk based on an established reputation they think can be used to approach the same asset in a different way.”

Such a reputation could be used to tackle tailings projects that come with legacy ESG issues – assets that will most likely get a second look in the future when commodities such as copper, nickel, etc become scarcer.

“In Australia, there are some fantastic opportunities where companies could gain revenue and value by picking up those legacy assets and remedying some of those ESG issues,” Tranter said. “As long as people understand the risks associated with what they are buying, then it is fair game.

“We at RPMGlobal are there to convey those risks clearly to the industry.”