Industry and Indigenous leaders came together to shape Canada’s battery value chain. Guided by an Indigenous Advisory Circle, they explored how meaningful partnerships can advance reconciliation, shared decision-making, and create opportunities and conditions for partnership.
The Energy Futures Lab is kicking off a year-long celebration of its 10-year anniversary with the announcement of the tenth cohort of its iconic Energy Futures Lab Fellowship.
The 49 Fellows signing on for the two-year program running from January 2025 to December 2026 will face notably strong headwinds to their objective of empowering Canadian businesses and communities to lead and thrive amid shifting energy paradigms. Turbulent domestic and international political situations, threats of tariffs on exports by the incoming US government, polarization, and misinformation are adding to the complexity surrounding urgent decisions and investments required to ensure the stability of Canada’s regional economies in the face of climate change, shifting trade agendas, and growing global energy needs.
“The messiness of this moment requires a complexity savvy approach,” says Alison Cretney, Managing Director of the Energy Futures Lab. “Canada needs to move quickly and decisively while also enabling unprecedented levels of collaboration at a moment of intense polarization. This makes the Energy Futures Lab the ideal partner to lead the creation of solutions that can help Canada navigate more quickly towards a secure and prosperous future that leverages our strengths as energy leaders.”
The members of the 2025-26 Energy Futures Lab Fellowship are:
This carefully curated cohort of influential leaders includes economic development experts, Indigenous and non-Indigenous business and community leaders, engineers, geologists, researchers, policy specialists, analysts, technology leaders, entrepreneurs, social workers, utilities administrators, communicators, finance professionals, artists, philanthropists and government representatives. Among their ranks are Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal and Governor General’s Medal recipients, several Top 40 Under 40 (and 30 Under 30) honourees, a Toastmasters champion, an Ironman Athlete, and a member of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency’s Nuclear Innovation 2050 project.
Together, Fellows will serve as an “in-house” representation of Canada’s broader energy system, including leaders and experts from different sectors, regions, cultures and technologies, primarily focused in Western Canada. Utilizing their collective insight, Fellows will anticipate and analyze implications of the shifting global context for Canada’s energy system, and identify windows of opportunity for Lab intervention to influence outcomes aligned with its 2050 vision. They will also lead and shape initiatives that help identify and resolve barriers impeding greater progress in select industrial growth pathways.
“It’s hard to imagine a more accomplished or diverse group that’s ready to roll up its sleeves in taking on this challenge,” continues Cretney. “Of any group that can guide the inspiring and productive places that Canada’s future energy system may take us, I believe in this one. I can’t wait to see the advancements their work together will generate over the next two years.”
In both Alberta and across Canada, the energy dialogue is once again fraught with political tensions and polarization. This has only been exacerbated by the complex and shifting geopolitical landscape of a post-pandemic world. Despite the challenges of the day, the Lab is steadfast in our mission to bring people with diverse voices together in a non-partisan way to work together to seek out and implement solutions that make real impact.
Even as our approach is needed more than ever, we’re facing significant hurdles to securing the funding needed to sustain our efforts. The current funding landscape is shifting beneath our feet, and while challenging, we’re drawing on our strengths and community to help us navigate this challenge with hopeful urgency.
Some of our long-standing funders have been unable to renew their commitments for reasons beyond our control. For instance, we see energy companies pivoting operations away from Canada and refocusing efforts in other jurisdictions, and others restructuring their charitable arms – creating serious uncertainty for the organizations counting on their ongoing support. While we remain hopeful about the possibility of future collaborations, these changes have created an impending gap in our funding that we must urgently address.
The Energy Futures lab does something unique as a space where individuals, communities, and organizations come together across divides to co-create solutions. And while we increasingly see organizations speaking about issues in a similar way, it’s not just that we bring people together, but in what we do together and how we design our work to make real, lasting impact when people go back to their daily lives. While we’re known for our impactful convening, our ongoing Innovation Challenges and initiatives are intentionally structured to create durable solutions and drive system-level change and our team is tenaciously working on these day after day.
Alberta is at the heart of Canada’s energy economy and where our role as a convener and innovator is especially critical. We have seen firsthand how depolarizing dialogue and creating shared purpose can lead to transformative outcomes. From fostering Indigenous leadership to driving economic opportunities in emerging industries, we are laying the groundwork for a net-zero future that works for everyone.
While the challenges we face are real, so too is our resolve and we’re actively pursuing all avenues to close the looming funding gap from exploring new partnerships to deepening our relationships with existing supporters. However, we can’t do this alone.
This is where you come in. If our mission resonates with you, we invite you to be part of our journey. Whether it’s through direct funding, connecting us with potential partners, or amplifying our work within your networks, your support can make a tangible difference. Together, we can ensure that this critical work continues and grows, creating the conditions for a thriving, sustainable energy future.
Creating our future energy system is more than just a technical or economic challenge, it impacts all aspects of society. In a time of polarization and uncertainty, we offer a hopeful path forward.
If you share our vision for a future that’s built collaboratively, inclusively, and equitably please reach out. Together, we can overcome these challenges and seize the opportunities that lie ahead.
Now, more than ever, the work we do matters. And with your support, we can ensure it continues.
Erin Romanchuk
Deputy Director
[email protected]
Early October is a good time to catch a shooting star. As the Draconid meteor showers streaked across the night sky, another group of shooting stars were being hailed for their outstanding contributions to sustainability in Canada and Alison Cretney, Managing Director of the Energy Futures Lab, was among them.
Joining a standout field of honorees, Alison was recently named one of Canada’s Clean50 award recipients for 2025 and we couldn’t be more thrilled for her to receive recognition for her dedication and leadership in accelerating Alberta’s energy transition. From the early days of the Lab her strategic insight, commitment to collaboration, and propensity for bold action have made the Lab a dynamic force for change. Over the past decade under Alison’s guidance, it’s become a trusted hub for multi-stakeholder innovation across the energy sector in Alberta and beyond.
With her driving force at the helm, the Lab hasn’t just kept pace with the energy transition – it’s been instrumental in setting the course and expanding our impact. Not only has the Lab tripled in size, in the last two years alone it’s launched over 35 groundbreaking projects. From roadmaps for Canada’s sustainable aviation fuels and battery metals industries, policy projects on novel markets for hydrocarbon assets, to the modernization of Alberta’s electricity grid, no challenge has been too complex to undertake. The Lab has become a powerful enabler of change, engaging hundreds of energy leaders each year and inspiring thousands of Albertans and Canadians to embrace the opportunities of a low-emission future.
This was the basis for Alison’s selection as a Canada’s Clean50 honoree. The awards honour 50 exceptional sustainability leaders driving environmental and economic impact across the country. On October 10th, Alison joined other recipients – both past and incoming – at the Clean50 Summit in Toronto to celebrate this accomplishment and connect with other leaders, innovators, and changemakers.
This milestone is not only a reflection of Alison’s contributions to the field, but also builds on the Lab’s history of creating system-level impact. The EFL is no stranger to Clean50 recognition, having received a number of accolades for innovative, high-impact projects driving sustainable change.
2024: C-SAF Roadmap for Sustainable Aviation Fuels
Last year, the EFL was honoured with a joint Clean50 Top Project award for its role in convening stakeholders and publishing the C-SAF Roadmap: Building a feedstocks-to-fuels SAF supply chain in Canada in partnership with C-SAF and the Transition Accelerator. This project provided a shared vision and action plan for advancing sustainable aviation fuels in Canada. The roadmap identified priority actions and investments required to position Canada as a leader in sustainable aviation, shaping the path forward for both industry and government.
2022: LEAD Project
In 2022, the Lab’s Leveraging our Energy Assets for Diversification (LEAD) initiative earned a Top Project award. This project, in partnership with the Canada West Foundation, united 25 participants from 16 organizations to develop a non-partisan bill focused on repurposing inactive oil and gas infrastructure. LEAD aimed to unlock entrepreneurial opportunities by closing regulatory gaps, encouraging the reuse of brownfield sites, and addressing Alberta’s challenge with orphaned wells. The project exemplified how thoughtful collaboration can align policy, regulation, and innovation to solve complex energy challenges.
2018: Social Innovation in Energy Transition
The Lab’s first Clean50 recognition was in 2018 for championing a social innovation approach to the energy transition and highlighted EFL’s ability to shift polarized energy conversations into collaborative dialogue – harnessing tensions and leading to system-level impact. Recognized for creating a platform for innovation and experimentation and also for reframing narratives about energy in Canada, the early success of what we now call the ‘EFL way’ laid the foundation for many of the current innovation areas we’re actively working in today.
Alison’s recent Clean50 award win is a nod to her personal achievements as an outstanding leader, and also a reflection of the impact the Energy Futures Lab continues to strive for. Having been consistently at the forefront of a system in transition for close to a decade, making impact through co-creation and innovation towards achieving our shared energy future has been a remarkable journey.
On behalf of the entire Lab team and our community, we extend our heartfelt congratulations to Alison for this well-deserved honour. As we celebrate this win, we are reminded of the opportunities ahead. May each of us be inspired and endeavor to face the road ahead with the same unwavering boldness and zeal.
The Energy Futures Lab (EFL) is announcing the imminent start of Phase 3 of its Alberta’s Electricity Future (AEF) initiative. This phase of the project marks a significant milestone in the second year of its three year arc: the start of a sprint series focused on solution prototyping.
While innovation is often thought of as purely technological, innovation in business models, policies, resources and investments, relationships and narratives (known collectively as social innovation) is also required to smooth paths to commercialization and mass adoption of new technologies as well as the transformation of associated policies, processes, and paradigms. What, for the industrial revolution, took centuries, must now be accomplished in a matter of decades in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change, which makes these often-overlooked social dimensions of change management critical. Grid modernization is just one of the innovation areas where the EFL is applying its award-winning expertise in social innovation-focused solution prototyping.
This latest phase introduces a new governance structure to the project: the Alberta’s Electricity Future Leadership Council, that will provide strategic advice to the project delivery team, surface emerging opportunities or barriers to the solutions in development, and identify high-leverage opportunities to explore new solution areas.
The council includes electricity leaders and experts representing diverse perspectives from within the system and regions within the province. Founding members include:
The council will also provide guidance to the project’s Working Groups, teams of subject matter experts responsible for hands-on solutioning, launching in October 2024. The Working Groups will initially focus on the following solution areas:
Incentivizing Optimization: creating novel mechanisms for utilities to prioritize optimizing the grid
Decentralized Future: exploring new ways to harness the benefits of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs)
Enhancing Demand Participation: exploring wholesale market opportunities for demand-side solutions and participation
These solution areas were selected by the AEF Coalition, a group of 60+ representatives from Alberta’s electricity system engaged through Phase 1 of the initiative, as well as additional project contributors. Phase 1 also convened these groups to develop, test and enhance the co-created vision and principles for Alberta’s Electricity Future: Leading the Charge: A Vision for Alberta’s Electricity Future. The final version of the document, originally released publicly in draft form on March 4, 2024, is now available for download.
In Phase 2 of the initiative, the Energy Futures Lab conducted a review of over 60 studies, reports and electricity system modernization plans spanning 5 countries to uncover both regional and universal barriers to electricity systems change. The barriers were then assessed using an Alberta lens to unearth the top 10 systemic barriers to advancing grid modernization in Alberta. Briefs on each of the 10 systemic barriers are now available for download on the Energy Futures Lab website.
Through its solution prototyping in Phase 3, the Energy Futures Lab aims to develop actionable and scalable solutions that help orient the province’s electricity landscape towards a system that is customer-driven, innovation focused, attractive to investors and which enhances Alberta’s future competitiveness by supporting regional growth industries and jobs they create.
“Technology alone will not be enough to solve the challenge of electrifying Alberta’s economy quickly and affordably,” says Alison Cretney, Managing Director of the Energy Futures Lab. “Change at this scale requires coordination at the highest levels of our electricity system. Supported by industry and policymakers seeking actionable, impactful and lasting solutions, Alberta’s Electricity Future Phase 3 utilizes the Lab’s trusted leadership in innovation to unlock the most promising collaborative solutions for a reliable, affordable and sustainable electricity system.”
“Electricity is the lifeblood of a modern economy, “ comments Peter Casurella, AEF Leadership Council member and Executive Director of SouthGrow Regional Initiative. “As a rural economic developer, I have a vested interest in ensuring that rural perspectives are considered as we determine how to prepare Alberta’s grid for significant growth in demand. I believe the Energy Futures Lab’s unique approach offers the greatest opportunity to create, implement and scale workable solutions that fairly represent everyone connected to the system—from rural economic regions, to transmission system owners, to residential electricity customers.”
Notably, this next phase begins as the Government of Alberta, Alberta Utilities Commission, and Alberta’s Electric System Operator (AESO) continue or commence their own consultations and processes for modernizing the province’s electricity system. The Energy Futures Lab’s process is not intended to be duplicative of existing efforts underway, but rather complementary and additive to ongoing work, contributing additional perspectives and analysis to the conversation.
For more information about the initiative or to learn more about how to get involved, please visit: energyfutureslab.com/innovations-challenges/albertas-electricity-future
Building on three decades of impact and growth, The Natural Step Canada, the parent organization of the Energy Futures Lab, is rebranding with a new name, new look, and new approach to surfacing the solutions Canada needs now.
On July 3rd, the Natural Step Canada is becoming Generate Canada. Its mission, in partnership with the Smart Prosperity Institute, is to connect problem-solvers to tackle the most complex challenges at the heart of economy, environment, and society. By working together, we will generate solutions for a strong and inclusive economy that thrives within nature’s limits.
While The Natural Step Canada’s vision has stood the test of time, our way of achieving it has evolved. The focus has shifted from influencing single organizations to influencing whole value-chains. By bringing together problem-solvers across the solutions ecosystem and putting all the tools of change on the table (policy, business practice, technology) we can achieve this. The new name speaks to this new approach – generating collaboration, innovation, and solutions.
The Energy Futures Lab is proud to be a solution space of Generate Canada.
Learn more about it at GenerateCanada.ca and follow them on LinkedIn and X.
Dear Lab Community,
Over the past nine years the Energy Futures Lab (EFL) has been hosting innovation processes and supporting collaborative solutions to create the energy system the future requires of us.
Throughout that time, we’ve been working within a dynamic energy system in a constant state of change – one that looks vastly different than it did even just a few years ago. Over the years, the ground has been readied and we are now seeing the seeds planted by the EFL over the years grow into opportunities in need of further acceleration, and solutions requiring our support to scale.
In response, the EFL is evolving our approach to accelerating the energy transition in Alberta. This responsiveness is a part of our nature as a social innovation lab, and one of the collective strengths we have been cultivating together over the last nine years.
The EFL model, established in 2015, was created in response to widespread polarization on the subject of energy transition in Alberta and Canada. Together with our incredible network of Fellows, Ambassadors, partners and advisors, we have achieved collaborative action and policy impact on many fronts critical to the energy transition: battery metals value chain alignment, sustainable aviation fuels, digital innovation solutions, transition finance policy, engaging rural communities, and Indigenous economic reconciliation, to name just a few. We have also contributed to culture and strategy shifts in key organizations and deepening our shared journey and commitment to truth and reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples in Canada.
Over that time, we’ve also undertaken a number of strategic pivots – adapting our way of working to meet the evolving needs of the system in order to make the most impact.
Most notably, this next transformation involves changing how we convene our core community of diverse innovators, leaders and energy transition champions, while ensuring that we carry forward the essential characteristics that make the EFL and its community so unique and special.
In part because of the work we’ve done together in the past nine years, the challenges we’re responding to now are different, and require an update in approach. Broadly, it’s now less about addressing the questions of “why do we need an energy transition, what it means and how should we work together?” and more about moving on to the challenge of “what are the top priorities and how do we get there at the pace and scale required?”
FOCUS
Given this context, beginning in January 2024 the Lab will focus its resources (and capacity for multi-stakeholder engagement) on enabling new growth industries that will position Alberta’s economy to thrive in a net-zero future. Our emphasis on doing this in a way that is inclusive, equitable, and in alignment to the spirit of Truth and Reconciliation with Indigenous people, partners and communities will continue.
EVOLVING THE LAB STRUCTURE
In service of this direction, the Lab will convene around a maximum of two-to-three Innovation Challenges at any given time. These are multi-year, multi-phased, deep-dive explorations of urgent and “wicked” challenges undertaken with coalitions made up of industry and subject matter experts, partners, communities and Rights Holders.
By focusing our efforts in concentrated areas, we believe that we can better mobilize our resources and our network to achieve outcomes that will have a significant impact toward creating the future energy system. An Innovation Challenge will result in smaller, specific scoped initiatives that will be supported by the EFL in ways that are required for their success (e.g. design and facilitation, fundraising, partnership brokering, communications, evaluation). Our initial confirmed Innovation Challenge is Alberta’s Electricity Future, with others to be identified and added over time.
Alongside the Innovation Challenge stream, the Lab will also undertake a series of Strategic Inquiries. These will be time-bound projects of a smaller scale, designed to explore the possibility of establishing an Innovation Challenge. To identify, prioritize and scope the challenges the EFL will work on, we will undertake research as well as convening the broader network to help sense what is most important to address in the energy system at the time.
FELLOWS, AMBASSADORS AND OUR LAB COMMUNITY
Since the Lab’s earliest days, the heart of the EFL has been its Fellowship. As we keep an eye to what role the system needs the EFL to play now, we are evolving how we engage this exceptional network of leaders.
As of September 2023, the Lab will no longer be accepting applications for its Fellowship and will evolve to a hyrbid model Ambassador program, designed specifically for past Fellows, partners, and strategic advisors. The 2024 hybrid EFL Fellowship and Ambassador Program is designed to accommodate different needs and engagement preferences within our community. Open to all current and past Fellows, this program provides participants with the flexibility to apply either as a Fellow or an Ambassador
EFL Fellows and Ambassadors, collectively, continue to be a group of innovators and influencers working in today’s energy system who explore and hold the significant tensions inherent in our mission. We will continue to leverage the network built over the past nine years to system sense, contribute to Innovation Challenges, and show leadership in mobilizing others to advance toward our shared vision.
This hybrid approach offers a singular cohort and program with roles tailored to individual preferences. The program aims to provide a dynamic and inclusive platform for all past Fellows, Ambassadors, and Alumni, fostering continuous learning, collaboration, and organizational support.
While we are not currently accepting applications for intake to our core Fellow & Ambassador community from the general public for 2024, we are committed to ensuring that our wider community is able to continue to contribute their ideas, knowledge, and skills to our mission in meaningful ways. We encourage you to stay informed and connected by signing up for our quarterly EFL Newsletter. This newsletter is your gateway to receiving updates and discovering opportunities for learning and active participation in our initiatives. It’s an excellent way to stay closely connected to the Lab and engage with our work.
We attribute much of the Lab’s success over the past nine years to our co-creation and nurturing of a unique organizational DNA, informed by the strength of the commitment, lived experiences and hearts of those who have shown up to contribute to this incredible community. In particular, the emphasis on intentional and thoughtful approaches to convening diverse perspectives, our attention to equity in our work, as well as our commitment to continuously improve how our work includes and benefits Indigenous people and communities, and contributes to advancing their priorities and perspectives. These principles have emerged as important cornerstones of ‘The EFL Way’. How these shape our work and our collective achievements is core to the value we bring to the system, and will remain so going forward.
Energy can be polarizing. But for Innisfail, the Roadshow brought people together to discuss the challenges they are facing and their hopes for the future. In coming together, people were able to create solutions for the community’s future.
Budget 2023 offered a much-needed response to legislation in both the US and Europe. In this blog we breakdown the what it means for Alberta and opportunities at hand.
The Grid Sandbox seeks to identify new ways for utilities and consumers to gather better data in a way that supports a clean, affordable and distributed electric energy system.
We are an Alberta-based coalition of diverse innovators and leading organizations working together to accelerate the transition to the energy system the future requires of us.
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