Inspire Resources Inc.

Truth and Reconciliation Day #NDTR is an opportunity for us to face reality, both past and present, and to create a new future. We cannot overstate the importance of facing and accepting the truth, the tragedy and trauma of residential schools and the historical relationship that has brought us to this point. Truth and Reconciliation Day also urges us to imagine a better future that goes beyond the binary way that we often use to conceptualize prosperity, freedom and rights. Today, big questions for #mining are: Where are we going and how will we get there? It’s clear from a half-century of court rulings, that we are going in the direction of recognizing all the rights and title of First Nations in Canada. Culturally, we are moving towards equitable outcomes and opportunities for Indigenous people. In this way, we can move from being “just another colonial state” to becoming a world leader in reconciliation. In this context, BC’s passing of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) is a step forward. DRIPA evokes fears for some but we at Inspire Resources have been working with miners and Indigenous thought leaders for years, and we believe that in the interface between First Nations and miners, the future is in Co-Design. Co-Design moves us to recognize the inherent rights of all people involved in mining: Communities should reap long-term benefits, workers should have secure and safe jobs, and miners should generate profits that allow them to pay back investors and reap a fair profit. Co-Design is a way of working that calls on us to recognize the limitations of our world view and then enter into dialogue with a vision for everyone’s success. If we look at this as the basis for accelerating critical minerals development, we can see a future where local, national and global economies come out on top. There is a growing body of evidence and literature (particularly from Australia) that such a pathway can and does succeed. It requires us to let go of our past ways of engaging with communities and planning mines. In the next few weeks, we will be working with a number of our community of Inspirers to develop a practical plan for implementing co-design methodologies. Co-Design, if done well and with the support of regulators, opens up space for prompt permitting and will help us to get critical minerals into the supply chain faster, while reaching higher standards of environmental sustainability. It also provides a path toward reconciliation at the local, provincial and national level. We would love to hear your thoughts about Co-Design and help to make it work for you.

BC embarks on path to mining reform, starting at the beginning.   When the BC Supreme Court decided that the process for staking claims in the province did not conform with the Constitution’s duty to consult, it started a process of creative problem-solving for everyone with an interest in the industry:   Gitxaała and ʔiiḥatisatḥ (Ehattesaht) First Nations celebrated the finding that the Crown (in this case, the province) had been registering claims improperly.   The province has set to work with an ambitious engagement process that includes nation-to-nation discussions and involves industry stakeholders as well.   While prospectors and explorers are trying to find the bright side of the decision, they are fearful that the changes will include burdensome processes that could put some of them out of business.   Inspire Resources sees both the challenge and a great potential: that moving consultation to an earlier phase of the mining development process will help miners and investors decide earlier which claims are viable (meaning they can actually be mined), as well as feasible (meaning that mining would be profitable).   This could lead to a reduction of wasted investment in the sector, so that we can get critical minerals into the supply chain more quickly.   More importantly, it opens the door for deeper relationships between miners and First Nations, that could lead to more Indigenous ownership and investment, and long-term benefits to help address community needs.   Check out our blog to get some context and an update on the process for developing a claims consultation framework, as well as the thoughts of the Inspire community on the implications. Tony Fogarassy Allen Edzerza Darrell Beaulieu Keerit Jutla Jason Rasevych Andy Randell PGeo Janice Fingler Chris Tucker Martin Olszynski Marc Pinkoski Scott Sellwood Beth Borody CDI.D Cheryl Brownlee Mark Podlasly ICD.D Sarah Caven Andres Recalde Matthew Grimshaw David Turner Jax Jacobsen Monica Ospina Claudine Pagé Miranda Shirley Adriaan Davidse  Rick Howes Elizabeth Freele Ludivine Wouters Valerie Pascale María José Torres Santeli Christian Sinclair Daniela Chimisso dos Santos Joseph Bevan Paul Gruner, MBA, CPA, ICD.D Anne Thompson Cassia Johnson  Brooke Rudolph Liz Lappin, P. Geo, MBA Aimee Boulanger

We have pivoted! Inspire Resources was incorporated 5 years ago this month, with a mission to deploy a #mining #businessmodelinnovation that would enable local communities to play the lead role in project #governance, including as majority owners. In that time we have only strengthened our belief that both the business model and the design process need to fundamentally shift towards an emerging social contract. But we have also learned that the ecosystem is not yet ready to support a mining-as-a-service-to-community start-up company. So, with the help of our network of Inspirers, we have spent the past 9 months rethinking how we can influence the project pipeline through technology-enabled adaptation support to junior miners, investors, governments and communities. Today we announce the launch of our new web site. Andy Reynolds and Kyle Pearce (he/him/his) would love to hear your feedback on the site. We are open for business! On this journey we have enjoyed the support and collaboration of many passionate individuals. We would particularly like to recognize the wise counsel of Tony Fogarassy, Darrell Beaulieu, Allen Edzerza, Chris Tucker, Scott Dunbar, Elizabeth Freele, Sarah Gordon, Darryl Steane P.Eng, GCB.D, CCB.D, Matthew Grimshaw, Liz Lappin, P. Geo, MBA, Estelle Levin-Nally CDir Dip IoD, Rob Karpati, Sarah Morris Lang, Katie Hulmes, Jessica Doherty, Brett Triffett, Kari LaMotte, Rob Stephens, Ryan Wilson, Jason Rasevych, Andy Randell PGeo, Ken Murray, Ryan Bracey, Jenny Agnew, Ian Lipchak, Nadim Kara, Will Pitman, Markus Wallgren, Marco A. Konrat Martins, Lyle Trytten, Dean O'Gorman, Malcolm Powell, Richard Williams, and of course our Advisory Committee Rick Howes, Cheryl Brownlee, Mark Thorpe, Beth Borody CDI.D and Adriaan Davidse. Thanks also to our numerous supporters, followers and amplifiers. We are blessed to be in this community! Now let's get to work on this project pipeline!

This resonates strongly with our experience of modelling flexibility into novel mining concepts.

Inspire Resources was founded in 2019 to reimagine #mining as a catalyst for #socioeconomicdevelopment. We saw that the mining company would need to show up as a service provider, not an asset owner, and we hypothesized that the best customer (i.e. decision-maker) would be an economic development corporation accountable to the local community. One of the pathways to this locally-led governance model is for the community to own the mine. Over time, through the great work of First Nations Major Projects Coalition and through the insights of our amazing network of inspirers, we came to understand the systemic barriers to this scenario, particularly for First Nations: primarily, that colonially-biased creditworthiness judgments of communities by financial institutions are not compatible with the risks of mine development. Asking government to underwrite the finance risk is a necessary step to break the catch-22 and enable a pathway to economic reconciliation, and we applaud FNMPC's efforts as reported here. But we also believe that a mine designed for this kind of customer will have a different risk profile, because it will be designed differently, by and with different people than is normal in the industry today. Reimagining that design process, from both a technical and a participatory perspective, is what we are shifting our attention to. We hope we can be ready in time. Stay tuned!

Mark Podlasly makes points here that have been obvious for years to anyone not blinkered by the incumbent #mining #businessmodel. As Inspire Resources pivots into 2024, we aim to bring a new perspective to the early stages of the #criticalminerals project lifecycle. We believe that the feasibility-first, consultation-second approach is obsolete. Industrial development must be community-integrated from Day 0, with governance increasingly locally-led. Stay tuned to hear what we propose to do about this, in terms of #governance, #sensemaking, #finance, #skills and #inclusiveengineering.

Time for some #systemsthinking in #criticalminerals. Mining companies' pursuit of economy of scale as a defence against market price volatility overlooks the fact that price volatility is *caused* by scale. That should be obvious when multiple mines are independently approved with simple payback times longer than the horizon to which anyone has ever successfully forecasted metal price. But, as this article illustrates, there are other factors of scale that weaken the critical supply chain: - large mines attract more opposition from afar - large mines are more susceptible to geopolitical influence - large mines have more impact on markets The whole point of critical minerals is that supply is too concentrated at a time of great demand growth. When we think of critical minerals, we should picture a large number of small, standardized, modular-scalable, low-impact, short-life mines, developed by mission-oriented companies determined to bring metal to market within a new social contract. Inspire Resources Inc. is pivoting to a new strategy to help make this happen. Watch this space for news, and if you are going to AMEBC Roundup in Vancouver next month, let's talk.