Working with Oil Sands Leadership Initiative (OSLI)
Forest in the Wood Buffalo region
Total E&P Canada is a founding member of OSLI: Oil Sands Leadership Initiative
. It has been described as a leadership group with a laser focus on performance improvement.
Formed in 2008, Total E&P Canada and four other like minded companies: Suncor, ConocoPhillips, StatoilHydro and Nexen, formed a collaborative network committed to achieving significant improvement in environmental, social and economic performance in oil sands development.
Total is a member of the Technology Breakthrough Working Group which is focused on finding economically viable solutions to improve energy efficiency and reduce the environmental impact of oil sands operations.
OSLI has five working groups focused on specific challenges: Land Stewardship, Water Management, Technology Breakthrough, Sustainable Communities, and Carbon Management and Energy Efficiency. The groups currently have about 20 projects in the development and implementation.
Since its creation, a number of OSLI projects have already produced results in environmental and education projects:
- Tree planting in the Wood Buffalo Region of Northern Alberta: In 2009, OSLI members invested over $600,000 towards tree planning initiatives for oil sands exploration (OSE) activities. Approximately 171,000 trees were planted at more than 100 OSE sites. It helped reduce the environmental footprint of projects in the area of Total's proposed Joslyn North Mine.
- A unique three year sustainable community pilot project in the Janvier/Chard community, home of the Chipewyan Prairie Dene First Nation and the Chard Métis community. The OSLI companies have hired a community coordinator to support the project. It is OSLI’s goal to develop and implement this community and youth led project in a number of other communities in the hope that truly listening to local community’s youth will result in long-term sustainability. Janvier/Chard is the closest community to Total E&P Canada's and ConocoPhillips’ Surmont operation.
