Not all ‘doom and gloom’: MEIA Cleantech Conference seeks positive track

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This article was published 08/11/2024 (330 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was a tacit acknowledgement of the increasing significance of the Manitoba Environmental Industries Association when the organization recently moved into new space and became co-tenants with the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce and other groups.

The organization has long-sought to encourage the development of what would typically be thought of as technology companies engaged in decarbonization activities or environmental remediation.

But it also serves to raise awareness of less well-known environmental dangers lurking and the ways to deal with them.

At the MEIA 2024 Cleantech Conference (largest of its type in Western Canada), to be held Nov. 20 at the RBC Convention Centre in Winnipeg, one of the keynote speakers will be Robert Bilott, a U.S. lawyer who gained prominence as an environmental attorney who became known as “DuPont’s worst nightmare.”

Bilott has won billions of dollars in awards for victims of contamination from what are known as “forever chemicals” or PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances).

(His book, Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed and One Lawyer’s Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont, was the inspiration behind the 2019 movie Dark Waters starring Mark Ruffalo.)

Although only three of approximately 15,000 known PFAS have been regulated to date, they are increasingly discovered to be contained in all sorts of products. The latest concerning example is their presence in firefighter protective gear.

Jack Winram, executive director of MEIA, said as he’s becoming more educated in the forever chemicals issue, “every tine I turn around I learn there’s PFAS in something new.”

As worrisome as it sounds, Winram said the MEIA conference is designed to have a positive narrative.

“The conference is not about doom and gloom and how bad thing are,” Winram said. “You can easily get to that place when you talk about climate change and decarbonization and PFAS. Our conference is meant to be constructive.”

In addition to Bilott’s talk (titled “Dark water: the story behind the environmental legal battle exposing corporate cover-up”), Jody Wilson-Raybould, Canada’s former justice minister and attorney general, is also speaking on “True reconciliation: how to be a force for change.”

Winram said reconciliation is a crucial element in the clean tech space when it comes to exploration and development of critical minerals, for example.

The presence of 30 of the 34 so-called critical minerals in Manitoba should put this province in the thick of things as the world pursues increasing volumes of nickel and lithium used in battery manufacturing. The province recently published a new critical minerals strategy, as geological surveys indicate they can be found below the surface throughout Manitoba.

“Because of the push to net zero (and the need to mine those minerals), partnerships with Indigenous communities are the key to future,” Winram said.

As well, he said, Indigenous communities are just as much and in some cases even more impacted by contaminants. “It is about industry engaging and partnering with Indigenous communities.”

The constructive element of the conference has a lot to do with the economic development side to the clean tech industry.

Notwithstanding the very broad definition of the sector — it’s “clean tech” if your job has something to so with sustainability, ESG, circular economy, decarbonization or environmental protection or management — the workforce connected to that broad sector is growing by 20 to 30 per cent per year.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca