PDAC: Miners wary as Ottawa eases greenwashing law

Ottawa is trying to take some sting out of Canada’s crackdown on greenwashing – overstating or misrepresenting environmental performance — but mining executives say companies already treat climate claims like legal commitments.

Bill C-15, the federal budget implementation bill now before the Senate after clearing the House on Feb. 26, is to roll back two of the most contentious changes to the Competition Act: the requirement that environmental claims about a company’s business activities be backed by an “internationally recognized methodology” and the ability for private parties to take those business-activity claims straight to the Competition Tribunal.

“If auditor assurance is not meeting the substantiation test, I’m not sure what is,” Lundin Gold (TSX: LUG) Vice-President for Legal and Sustainability, Sheila Colman, said during a panel Sunday at the annual Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada convention in Toronto.

The stakes for miners have climbed as automakers, lenders and regulators demand proof behind “clean copper” and “low-carbon” claims and as carbon targets and electrification plans get baked into environmental assessments, permits and investor decks years before shovels hit the ground.

Claim probes

Even under Bill C-15, the Competition Bureau could still investigate and enforce claims, according to the panel called Strategies for Avoiding Greenwashing and Disclosure Risks. Private applicants would still have routes for other misleading-advertising provisions that cover environmental claims about products, which carry a separate “adequate and proper test” substantiation standard.

Lundin had little choice but to “double down” on disclosure because it is listed in Sweden and preparing for reporting and assurance work under Europe’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which is considered stronger than any measures in North or South America. Some companies keep quiet about environmental efforts to avoid scrutiny or accusations of greenwashing, but Lundin has ruled that out.

“Green hushing is not a risk management strategy for us,” Colman said.

Lundin is active in Ecuador, where it operates the Fruta del Norte underground gold mine in Zamora-Chinchipe province in the country’s southeast near the Peruvian border.

Promises

Mine builders face a unique trap, Seabridge Gold’s (TSX: SEA; NYSE: SA) Senior Vice-President of Environmental Affairs, Brent Murphy, said. Early-stage greenhouse-gas models can harden from forecasts into enforceable promises.

“Failing to meet these is not reputational, it is actually a regulatory failing,” Murphy said.

Emissions assumptions and mitigation concepts can become permit conditions and show up in public disclosure once a project enters environmental assessment and permitting, he said. It prompted the company to review past statements and tighten language across filings and its website after legislative changes to the Competition Act in 2024 raised the risk of challenges.

Seabridge’s flagship KSM gold-copper project sits in northwestern British Columbia’s Golden Triangle, about 65 km northwest of Stewart.

Sunnier forecasts

Remote projects can often get hit with what’s called “single-factor” pressure to meet ambitious electrification goals without the parallel infrastructure needed to deliver low-carbon power, said Thesis Gold (TSXV: TAU) Executive Vice-President of External Affairs and Sustainability, Stephen Crozier.

That gap can invite optimistic “sunnier forecasts” about technology readiness, which become risky once they are repeated in formal disclosure. Thesis’ Lawyers-Ranch gold-silver project is in B.C.’s Toodoggone region, about 275 km northeast of Smithers.

Miners need to pivot away from storytelling about intent and towards what can be demonstrated with data, Crozier argued. Companies should widen the lens, partnering with host communities on infrastructure plans that can outlast a mine’s operating life and potentially make decarbonization options more realistic.

Once emissions assumptions get written into assessment filings, they can “become embedded” as permit conditions. That leaves miners to rely on audit-grade documentation and third-party assurance as their best defence when targets, grids or technology shift, Seabridge’s Murphy said.