Streamlining Clean Growth Project Approvals

The paper examines how strategic assessments—which analyze policies and systemic issues rather than individual projects—can accelerate Canada's net zero transition. It highlights that while the 2019 Impact Assessment Act provides a framework, the tool remains underused and lacks formalization. By adopting global best practices such as tiering, formal triggers, and outcome monitoring, Canada could more efficiently manage cumulative impacts and share regulatory burdens between strategic and project-level assessments.

• The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in October 2023 that the 2019 Impact Assessment Act is largely unconstitutional because it allows the federal government to stop projects for reasons outside its jurisdiction. However, the portions of the Act defining strategic assessments were not affected by this ruling, making them a potentially stable tool for regulatory review.
• Strategic assessments can streamline approvals by addressing cumulative impacts—which are often negligible for a single project but significant when combined—and by sharing the regulatory burden with project-level impact assessments. For example, a strategic assessment can establish a methodology for climate impacts that subsequent project assessments can use, avoiding duplicative work.
• Canada's current implementation of strategic assessments under the Impact Assessment Act is underdeveloped, lacking clear triggers, formalized processes for identifying impacts, and guidance on how strategic findings should be 'factored in' to project-level reviews.
• To improve effectiveness, Canada should adopt 'tiering,' a practice used in the United States where high-level strategic assessments inform specific lower-level assessments. This allows regulators to identify ideal impact thresholds and templates, enabling project-level reviews to focus only on those that exceed these thresholds or deviate from the templates.
• The paper suggests that strategic assessments should be used to develop a well-defined approach for evaluating the positive impacts of clean growth projects—such as clean technology innovation and improved energy security—which are currently often ignored in regulatory reviews that focus primarily on screening out harmful projects.
• Strategic assessments could address the cumulative negative impacts of clean growth projects on Indigenous communities and establish standards for benefit-sharing and consultation, particularly following a September 2023 B.C. Supreme Court ruling that the provincial mining regulatory process violated the duty to consult.

APA

Canadian Climate Institute (2023). Streamlining Clean Growth Project Approvals. https://climateinstitute.ca/publications/streamlining-clean-growth-project-approvals/

Chicago

Canadian Climate Institute. Streamlining Clean Growth Project Approvals. 2023. https://climateinstitute.ca/publications/streamlining-clean-growth-project-approvals/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Canadian Climate Institute |title=Streamlining Clean Growth Project Approvals |date=30 November 2023 |url=https://climateinstitute.ca/publications/streamlining-clean-growth-project-approvals/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{canadianclimateinstitute2023streamlining, author = {{Canadian Climate Institute}}, title = {{Streamlining Clean Growth Project Approvals}}, institution = {Canadian Climate Institute}, year = {2023}, month = nov, url = {https://climateinstitute.ca/publications/streamlining-clean-growth-project-approvals/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }