---

Executive Summary

Standards can help guide organizations in the petroleum and natural gas (PNG) sector to comply with regulatory requirements by authorities having jurisdiction (AHJ) for environmental management (EM).

The objective of this report is to undertake a jurisdictional review of laws and soft law instruments, industry practices and environmental management standards employed by the Canadian PNG sector to manage environmental impacts across project life cycles. This research includes:

• Reviewing EM acts, regulations and associated instruments across Canada to understand their scope, applicability and aspects covered
• Gathering insight into existing industry practices, including the use of voluntary standards, through literature review and engagement with interested parties
• Identifying gaps in the current EM requirements
• Recommending standardization approaches to address identified gaps.

PNG activities covered included upstream, midstream and downstream activities. The components of the biophysical environment are atmospheric environment, soil, water, vegetation, and wildlife and biodiversity.

In Canada's legislative framework, four layers of laws and instruments were examined:

• Layer 1: General environmental protection and environmental assessment acts and regulations
• Layer 2: General biophysical component acts and regulations
• Layer 3: Canadian PNG-sector-specific acts
• Layer 4: Canadian PNG-sector-specific environmental protection regulations and soft law instruments

The scope of the jurisdictional review was limited to six provinces – British Columbia (BC), Alberta (AB), Saskatchewan (SK), Ontario (ON), Quebec (QC) and New Brunswick (NB) – as well as federal instruments. These six provinces were chosen because of their relatively high concentration of PNG activities compared to other jurisdictions in Canada.

The jurisdictions reviewed have similar approaches to management of environmental impacts of projects through Layer 1 and Layer 2 instruments. In the case of Layer 3 instruments, not all jurisdictions have an act that establishes a regulator with specific responsibilities for the PNG sector. The Canada Energy Regulator (CER), the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), the British Columbia Energy Regulator (BCER), and the Saskatchewan Ministry of Energy and Resources (SK MER) have been vested with authority to oversee the responsible development, regulation and enforcement of energy resource activities within their jurisdictions, including regulating compliance with environmental practices. In NB, ON and QC, PNG activities are overseen by a combination of provincial agencies, with less emphasis on direct oversight of resource extraction compared to the provinces with energy regulators.

This difference in approach to governance, together with differences in the nature and magnitude of PNG activities, is reflected in the extent to which Layer 4 instruments exist. AB, BC and SK have multiple Layer 4 instruments developed under the authority of the provincial regulator. The CER also developed specific Layer 4 instruments for the management of environmental impacts from PNG activities falling under its jurisdiction.

Voluntary standards are most likely to support gaps in Layer 4 instruments or in the development of new Layer 4 instruments. Given the variability in approaches across jurisdictions, areas of opportunity include the application of environmental management system (EMS) standards, methane leak detection and repair (LDAR) requirements, and endpoints for reclamation and biodiversity.