For the last few months, the Energy Futures Lab has been in recruitment mode, searching for promising leaders and influencers from across Alberta’s energy landscape to join the EFL Fellowship. We can’t wait to see the ingenuity and energy that the new cohort brings to the EFL Innovation Pathways. Why is the EFL actively seeking new Fellows? Because Alberta and Canada need bold innovators to play a leading role in identifying, testing and scaling creative energy initiatives that will have a...

Since its inception in 2015, the Energy Futures Lab has had a primary focus on the development of the Fellowship and the co-creation of collaborative initiatives in the Innovation Pathways. So how can you get involved with the EFL? There are plenty of opportunities – just choose your adventure! Over the course of the almost two years of this work, hundreds of other people have connected to the EFL in one way or another. In this next phase of expansion, the EFL will now be opening its doors...

The Energy Futures Lab is excited to announce the three newest members of its Advisory Council. By serving as public champions for the EFL, offering high-level counsel and role modelling innovation and leadership, the Advisory Council lends credibility and wisdom to the evolution of the Energy Futures Lab. Judy Fairburn is passionate about driving Canadian innovation to build a highly competitive energy industry, which positions Canada well in the global innovation race. Judy is the Executive...

Well, 2016 was quite a year for Alberta. A lingering recession due to low oil prices. Provincial climate policies announced and enacted. A couple of pipelines approved. A dramatic U.S. presidential election and shifting global geopolitics. The EFL Fellows have been the driving force at the centre of this important work, and nothing has been so impressive to me personally as witnessing the abilities and growth of these innovators and influencers, as a group and as individuals. 2017 is already...

2016 was a year of change and new realities. 2016 was a year of change and new realities. It ended with national and international developments that will impact Alberta’s energy system for years to come. These include uncertainty looming around the US elections, the continued Alberta recession, the ramifications of pipeline approvals, and the new regulations addressing climate change. Such complex and difficult topics likely made for some contentious Christmas dinner conversation starters in...

On December 5, 2016, approximately 170 people braved the cold to talk about the future of energy in Alberta at the University of Calgary’s downtown campus. Dr. David Layzell, Energy Futures Lab (EFL) Steering Committee Member and Director of the Canadian Energy Systems Analysis Research (CESAR) project, argued that energy system transition is the “grand challenge for our society.” The EFL design team worked with Dr. David Layzell and his research group to help identify big challenges and...

No one ever said the transition to a new energy economy would be easy. From the very beginning, The Natural Step Canada (TNSC) was under a great deal of pressure to describe the impacts and outcomes of the Energy Futures Lab (EFL). We resisted prescribing a solution. Our Fellowship – more diverse than we could have hoped – has created a shared vision and innovation pathways, generated new ideas, and brought existing initiatives into the lab to amplify and scale. Describing any specific...

Navigating the interconnected web of issues surrounding energy, climate change and sustainable development is a complex task. Over the past year and a half, the Energy Futures Lab (EFL) has developed a platform for constructive dialogue and game-changing innovation. Through this process, we have identified five essential leadership capacities to succeed in this space. This November, join other leaders and innovators in the inaugural three-day EFL Leadership Bootcamp to hone these five...

Leaders from government, business, not-for-profit, academia and indigenous communities will gather in Calgary for a special two-day event on October 19 and 20. Their objective: to share proposed solutions for solving Alberta’s most complex and pressing energy challenges. This October event is an opportunity for the EFL to make its network of ideas even more inclusive and tested with as many diverse perspectives as possible before scaling up and communicating broadly through a public...

Earlier this fall Alberta’s Economic Development and Trade Minister Deron Bilous appointed Gord Lambert to chair a Climate Technology Task Force, which will engage stakeholders and advise the government on a framework for climate change innovation and technology. In addition to supporting research and development and investing in new technology ventures, let’s also create opportunities for the scores of innovators and influencers in Alberta to interact with one another in unpredictable ways…...

Building systems that are fit for the future means beginning with the end in mind and working together with unlikely allies. Our greatest challenges can only be addressed if we learn to do so. Chad Park lays out an approach that aligns diverse perspectives towards a shared understanding of what the future requires: backcasting from sustainability principles. He also introduces the groundbreaking initiative that is putting these ideas to the test: the Energy Futures Lab. Chad Park is Chief...

You need to critically test for whether the pace and scale at which work is getting done is appropriate to the challenges that you’re trying to take on. Nowadays, it’s a key success factor: can you accelerate progress? On issues like climate change, we have to accelerate progress tremendously. – Gord Lambert Pong : You talk about the importance of setting up aspirational goals to help drive innovation. Do you feel that the EFL Vision and Innovation Pathways are aspirational enough to spark...

The term “Brain Trust” was coined in the 1930s by a New York Times reporter to describe a group of advisors who provided advice to Franklin D. Roosevelt during his presidential campaign. Today, the term is used more broadly to describe a prized group of advisors who hold expertise in their particular fields. Under that definition it is easy to see that the Energy Futures Lab is indeed one of our province’s greatest brain trusts. The FSDS is the government’s plan and vision for a more...

The Energy Futures Lab is all about the energy system. In fact, the idea is built right into our convening question “How can Alberta’s leadership position in today’s energy system serve as a platform for transitioning to the energy system the future needs?” But what do we really mean by the energy system? It is important to keep in mind the great quote from George E.P. Box “All models are wrong but some are useful”. Is the energy system all about oil and gas? What about electricity...

Accelerating the transition to a sustainable energy system is a pretty big goal. Let’s face it, if we could meet this challenge with a step-by-step approach, we would have solved it by now. How do we keep track? How can we make sure that we are delivering value to the Fellows and contributing to systems change? How do we know when we getting to the “breakthrough results” we are looking for? But we know these change processes are highly complex and very difficult to predict in advance. In...

If the energy transition is a journey, what are the paths to get there? Our future isn’t in a single resource based economy or a silver bullet solution. Instead, it’s a series of paths leading to the same destination, paved by diverse talents and opportunities. But we need to quickly recognize the tools and resources we have, and looking at the trailblazers in cleantech is a good place to start. To better understand the potential for cleantech in Canada, Rudayna Bahubeshi sat down with EFL...

In our current energy transition dialogue, we’re used to separate and fragmented conversations from opposing viewpoints. The conversations generally hold a lot of emotion including apprehension, fear and frustration. There isn’t yet a wealth of examples, outside the Energy Futures Lab, that builds trust across the boundary that pins “us” against “them.” Leor Rotchild recently talked with Lliam Hildebrand, the newest Energy Futures Fellow, on how his organization Iron & Earth is creating a...

In this three-part blog series, Donna provides practical advice on how to begin the sustainability planning discussion in your organization, with your stakeholder communities and with the critics. She will provide tools to accompany each blog post to assist you, as an intrapreneur, in applying the learnings. Building trust is really hard work. Working to understand what sustainability really means to your company, and what sustainability really means to your critics, and then building the...

Back in February, Energy Futures Lab Director Chad Park blogged about ‘ Our Unfinished Backcasting Business ’. He explained how an EFL vision of Alberta’s energy future, in part defined by science-based conditions for a sustainable economy, would be essential to establishing the creative tension that will drive innovation in the lab. How did we get to the point where the fellows could agree on a vision that is at once robust enough to provide direction to their collaborative efforts,...

The May workshop of the Energy Futures Lab (EFL) Fellowship marked an important milestone, as the EFL pivots into a second phase of greater visibility and expanding impact. Deep, effective collaboration is easier said than done, requiring commonality of vision, shared value, and mutual trust. The pivot is partly a reflection of where we’re at in the Lab process and partly inspired by feedback received from EFL Fellows during a mid-point set of interviews conducted in April. It’s also...