Mining for a Sustainable Future: A Symposium on Responsible Supply Chains
with Christopher Pollon & Katherine E. Standefer
Monday, May 27th, 2024 | 4:30-7:30PM PDT | Get Tickets
UBC Sauder School of Business, Robson Square Campus | 800 Robson St, Vancouver BC, V6Z 2E7

Join UBC Sauder's Centre for Climate and Business Solutions and the Bradshaw Research Institute for Minerals and Mining for "Mining for a Sustainable Future": a dialogue on sustainable supply chains. This event provides a vital platform for exploring the complex role of mining in our society, emphasizing our profound connections to this crucial industry.

The event will feature two prominent authors who have personal and profound connections to mining and which provide a shared meaning for us all. Katherine Standefer and Christopher Pollon will speak about their experiences and findings in writing books on mining, coming from two different perspectives.

Katherine Standefer’s book Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life considers the author’s own relationship with the minerals necessary to make a life-saving device and balance a life saved against lives lost elsewhere in extractive industries.

Her debut book, Lightning Flowers was a Finalist for the Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction, a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice/Staff Pick, and shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Prize from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Lightning Flowers was also selected as the Common Read at Colorado College in '22-'23, featured on NPR's Fresh Air, and named one of O, The Oprah Magazine's Best Books of Fall 2020. Standefer earned her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Arizona. She has been a Logan Nonfiction Fellow at the Carey Institute for Global Good and a Marion Weber Healing Arts Fellow at the Mesa Refuge. Her work was included in The Best American Essays 2016. She lives in a cabin in Wyoming near the Greys River.

Christopher Pollon, from a mining family, wrote Pitfall: The Race to Mine the World's Most Vulnerable Places on the past, present, and future of mining – how do we get what we need and minimize harm? He highlights our reliance on mining worldwide, fundamentally affecting people and places we have never thought about, let alone seen.

Pollon is an award-winning Canadian freelance journalist and author focused on the environment, business and the politics of natural resources. He is the author of two books, including Pitfall (2023) – and The Peace in Peril (2017). Covering a global beat of oceans, energy and mining, his writing has been published by National Geographic, VICE, The Walrus, The Globe and Mail and many more. He is a contributing editor at The Tyee, based in his hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia.

The speakers be joined in discussion with Scott Dunbar of the UBC Norman B Keevil Institute of Mining. Scott’s research focuses on the future of mining, including new business models, strategies and innovations that will shape what mining will look like 50 to 100 years from now.

The symposium is designed to foster meaningful dialogue and build collaborative networks within our research community focused on sustainable mining practices.

Book sales will be available on the day, and both authors will be available for signing.