people. Further, it outlines how engagement around mine development can be improved and, lastly, it investigates how land use is managed and points to the importance of linking special planning with regional development objectives such as mining.
4 Setting the right frameworks for
sustainable mine development in
Upper Norrland
Assessment and recommendations
Assessment
Sweden has a complex and multi-layered regulatory framework that can improve efficiency, predictability and transparency. Key challenges to overcome include delays resulting from late appeals or uncertainty on the scope of permit applications, limited trust and perceived legitimacy, as well as separate decision-making on land use and other environmental factors. Changes to the system are needed to increase attractiveness for investors, resolve planning bottlenecks for municipalities and avoid tensions between interest groups.
o Several steps, various laws and different agencies involved in the permitting process, in combination with limited guidelines and lack of clarity on assessment criteria create a complex permitting process. This complexity makes it difficult for companies to anticipate the views and requirements of government agencies, extends timeframes and disadvantages small mining companies and investors, which cannot draw on the same resources as large, established companies to manage these processes. In some municipalities, delays create significant uncertainty in relation to land use planning and investments (infrastructure, services and houses).
o The two major agencies that can take decisions on mines, namely the Mining Inspectorate and the Environmental Court, operate under different objectives and permitting stages. This segmentation means that mining concessions are given before the impact of the whole project is assessed and environmental impacts considered. Also, decision-making is not comprehensive with regard to social, economic and cultural aspects as well as cumulative effects happening on a certain territory. Including these in the process is essential to shift towards requiring a positive contribution to sustainable regional development from mining and away from only mitigating adverse effects.
o The current system provides limited direction in terms of guidance or legal requirements on how to conduct meaningful consultation of local and regional perspectives on mine development, including from Sami people. This reduces local support for mining activities and decreases the ability for companies to identify critical issues early and better adopt a project proposal to the local environment and social context. From an international law perspective, reindeer herders are also rights holders as well as being stakeholders;
however, free, prior and informed consent is not required in Sweden. Further, the prioritisation of national interests falls under the responsibility of the County Administrative Boards (CABs) – a national agency – that operate at great discretion resulting in different boards applying different standards across places.
In Västerbotten and Norrbotten, there is a need to better link regional development objectives with land use. The expansion or introduction of extractive industries generates new land use and infrastructure requirements that need to be incorporated into municipal planning.
Decisions are often largely based on compliance with national guidelines (such as areas of national interest). Also, they often lack consideration form a regional development perspective and are limited in their flexibility to respond to rapidly arising needs. Similarly, regional development programmes miss a physical planning perspective, in order to deliver on regional development objectives in both counties.
Recommendations
Improve Sweden’s regulatory framework to better reflect regional development opportunities. For this the national government should:
Adopt instruments to improve predictability. For instance, by introducing set timelines and limits for decision-making at the onset of an application process. Outlining intermediate steps and windows for feedback/dialogue can provide project proponents with more clarity on when determinations are made and ensure that public consultations are planned with sufficient lead time. This should go hand in hand with strengthening possibilities for all local actors to have the possibility to participate in the process. Alternatively, a performance indicator for government agencies that publicly reports on statutory timeframes could be an option.
Strengthening the evidence base, which underpins decision-making for mining concessions and environmental permits through better definition of the extent to which socio-economic, cultural and cumulative impacts are considered in decision-making. To this end, detailed definitions in the legislative language of the Environmental Code and other provisions should be developed to clearly communicate scope and interpretation of socio-economic and cultural impacts. How impacts are considered and weighted in decision-making should also be defined. Further, concrete guidance for project proponents on how to best assess these impacts for applications should be developed. Explanations of cumulative impacts should account for spatial and temporal scale impacts as well as interrelationships between impacts.
Cumulative impact assessments should further include a contribution to regional development objectives. Decision-making can be facilitated through making use of context-specific sustainability-based criteria and trade-off rules.
Increase the legitimacy and transparency of the permitting processes though the more developed and inclusive mechanism of dialogue and consultation with all local actors, including Sami people. For this, the national government should:
Develop clear and consistent consultation guidelines for the mining industry. It should define how the consultation process should proceed and who should be involved in the process, including parameters around what type of information is provided to communities at each step of the process. It should also clarify to what extent project proponents and responsible authorities ought to take voiced perspectives and positions into account. The Swedish government should consider introducing an impartial oversight of the process through a dedicated body, agency or person. Specific guidelines for consulting with Sami villages should be developed together with the Sami Parliament and other Sami stakeholders. These should also define the status of Sami traditional knowledge in the consultation.
Ensure early-stage engagement and consultation rules within the framework of the Minerals Act and Environmental Code. This should include how and when notifications should proceed and the nature of the engagement (format, etc.) as well as required documentation.
Strengthen the capacity of rights holders and interested parties for engagement, including Sami villages. This should entail that proponents need to provide financial resources to affected parties to compensate for the cost incurred in corporate consultation without any obligation influencing the outcome, further, providing greater overall institutional and analytical capacity to special interest holders to manage demands for consultation. For affected Sami people, the Sami Parliament could play a stronger co-ordinating role in distributing information to Sami villages with regards to making contributions in consultations, conducting consultations
experts/lawyers that Sami villages can draw upon at no or reduced cost. It could also include establishing a register of agreements between mining and energy companies and Sami villages, and templates/guidance to support agreement making. This can improve transparency in the process and encourage peer learning amongst communities that need to deal with similar requests.
Better link regional development with land use and resources planning. The regional councils should:
Create an effective co-ordination framework that allows for strategic dialogue about land use and economic development between municipalities and regional councils. Planning based on potentials and opportunities can be incentivised by developing strategic spatial plans at a regional scale. The region of Skåne offers a good example that could guide this process.
Regional spatial plans should account for interrelationships at functional scale and can help guide regional and municipal planning. It should also be used to guide decisions made on regional development policies and cumulative impacts though informing the platform for resource development.
Develop a platform for resource development to facilitate regional, sustainability-based planning for mines and resource projects. The platform would oversee all mining and ideally other infrastructure and energy applications in the region, compile information on land use and act as a contact point for all stakeholders, including authorities, proponents for mining projects and landowners, interest holders and the general public. It could help to reduce the frictions of multiple reviews and entities, ensure the neutrality of consultation processes and improve decision-making on developments. Its role should include setting up a geospatial database displaying all current permit processes as well as current land use activities. This information should be used to keep track of cumulative impacts and should provide guidance for governance agencies on decisions to be made in permit applications.
Introduction
Institutions, regulatory frameworks and planning processes create important framework conditions for regional development. Fostering the growth of the regional mining industry may require new transport and housing developments, as well as the protection of environmental assets and amenities. This can also impact the capacity to develop other areas such as tourism and recreation. Regulatory processes and planning frameworks define how policy objectives are turned into reality. They balance different interests, assess risks and benefits of potential developments, define who is involved in decision-making processes and plan for how available space is used. In the mining context, regulations and institutional frameworks also play a key aspect in the countries’ attractiveness to new developments and in assuring local social acceptance of mining, for instance, through high levels of transparency and legitimacy.
Changing global and local circumstances, such as demographic change, automation and transition to a low carbon economy, can challenge systems in place and create the need for adjustments both in formal regulations but also in informal roles and ways of working. The previous two chapters have underlined the challenges and strengths to be addressed by the regions of Västerbotten and Norrbotten. They highlight the need to address the consequences of a rapidly ageing and declining population and the potential of becoming a global leader in environmentally sustainable mining practices through innovation and building a strong ecosystem for local businesses.
Responding to these challenges will require regulatory and planning processes to reflect objectives and vision for growth outlined by national and regional policies. They contribute to assuring future attractiveness for investors, sustaining a collaborative approach between different levels of government, businesses and Sami communities, and help regions and municipalities designate the needed land for a variety of activities.
This chapter offers assessment and recommendations on regulatory and planning structures that are important for regional development in the mining context in Sweden. This includes regulatory framework and planning guiding mining and mineral activities in Sweden and the distribution of competencies in regional policymaking and its implementation. It starts by examining bottlenecks in the regulatory process for mining permits and looks at ways to avoid delays and improve predictability, transparency and legitimacy for all involved parties, including the private sector, regional and local governments, and affected communities, including the Sami. Further, it outlines how engagement in the mining permitting process can be improved and, lastly, investigates how Västerbotten and Norrbotten govern their multifunctional geographical landscapes in the context of mine development and points to the importance of linking special planning with regional development objectives as well as greater collaboration amongst local and regional constituencies.