Best practices for Impact Benefit Agreements: A case study of the Mary River Project

The purpose of this project is to identify the best practices for negotiating, implementing, and writing Impact Benefit Agreements, organize those best practices into an evaluation framework, and use this framework to evaluate a case study. Best practices were identified in twenty-seven academic articles, books, reports, and guides compiled through a literature review. These best practices became forty-six sub-criteria, organized under eleven themes called criteria. Each is ranked and scored using indicator questions. The evaluation results are used to identify strengths and weaknesses of the Impact Benefit Agreement and its surrounding context. In this study, the Mary River Project Inuit Impact Benefit Agreement was evaluated as a case study. The Mary River Project is an iron ore mining project located on Baffin Island in Nunavut. This case received an overall best practices adherence score of 84%, which shows that the project has many strengths but much room for improvement. Several recommendations for the agreement and surrounding context were identified using the evaluation results.