Transparency as a guiding principle
On March 30, Copperstone Resources submitted its application for an environmental permit for the reopening of the Viscaria mine in Kiruna. Thus, the company is in the public environmental process when all supporting reports and the environmental impact assessment (EIA) must be reviewed by authorities. The material will then form the basis for the Land and Environment Court’s decision on environmental permits.
A permitting process is extensive and takes time. During the course of the work, stakeholders and stakeholders have full transparency based on the principle of public access to information. To further facilitate the dialogue, Copperstone has chosen to publish the entire environmental permit application with appendices and environmental-impact assessment on its own website. Here, Copperstone will continue to publish the ongoing dialogue with the authorities in the form of letters and opinions received, together with its own responses and comments. Copperstone’s Head of Environment & Sustainability Anders Lundkvist says that there is a clear idea behind the initiative.
A service for stakeholders
“Since the documents in the process are public, we choose to publish all documentation that is not protected by confidentiality. We see it as a service for those stakeholders and property owners that we and the authorities need to have a dialogue with,” says Anders Lundkvist.
The application with attachments has been made available via a permit portal on the website. In addition to links, the portal provides guidance to various summary parts of the environmental-impact assessment and technical descriptions.
“We are proud of our application but at the same time fully aware that it will now be reviewed and scoured by authorities and individuals. Then we think it is a good idea to give everyone easy access to the material and ongoing updates in the case,” Anders Lundkvist continues.
A picture is worth a thousand words
Today, various types of consultation and permit portals online are established ways of working. Copperstone has the ambition to be transparent in all parts of its work, which is why its own portal has been central since the initial phase with consultation and stakeholder dialogue. Going forward, Copperstone will supplement with video documentation from the Viscaria area. Based on the motto “A picture says more than a thousand words”, it is hoped that the videos will provide more transparency and facilitate dialogue during the application process.
“My hope is that the video documentation will be a good support in the conversations and that it can bring the content of our permit portal to life,” concludes Anders Lundkvist.
Pending a decision from the Land and Environment Court, Copperstone’s planning continues. The goal is to be able to commission mining operations by 2023.