Can Syncrude Canada maintain its legacy of social engagement in … – Alberta Oil Magazine

After 50 years of operations, the company that led the way in social responsibility faces new challenges

North of Fort McMurray there is a herd of four-meter-tall siltstone bison sculptures. The landmark, commissioned by Syncrude Canada Ltd. in 1995, is the work of artist Brian Clark and his team from nearby Fort MacKay, an aboriginal community surrounded on all sides by oil sands development.

A few kilometers up the highway, you’ll find 300 live-in-the-flesh bison roaming land reclaimed from mining operations now called the Beaver Creek Wood Bison Ranch, which is a partnership between Syncrude and the Fort McKay First Nation. Syncrude’s involvement in these projects is not accidental. Through its environmental initiatives, community involvement and partnerships with aboriginals, Syncrude has worked hard to prove itself a responsible steward. The organization turns 50 this year, and it’s thinking a lot about its legacy.

In addition to being an oil sands pioneer, a major part of Syncrude’s legacy is in achieving – at least in the community around Fort McMurray – social license to operate. Managing director of the Macdonald Laurier Institute Brian Lee Crowley has called social license “opposition’s permission,” a tyrannical abstraction that threatens the basis of democratic society. In The National Post, Terence Corcoran calls social license a “free-market killing concept.” But Syncrude has steadfastly held to its community and aboriginal relations commitments and its executives say that despite the cost of these programs, the company has benefited from the goodwill created in the community of Wood Buffalo.

Read more: http://www.albertaoilmagazine.com/2014/09/license-granted/