The Future Materials Alliance has been launched to aid the development of Canada’s critical materials ecosystem.
The Alliance is led by the Energy Futures Lab and formed with the Battery Metals Association of Canada, the Transition Accelerator and the Indian Resource Council.
“We’re identifying regional workforce, education, infrastructure, and industrial opportunities, while connecting companies and communities around a broader regional plan,” said Richard Hiller, director of the Future Materials Alliance. “That groundwork helps de-risk investment at the community level and strengthens Western and Northern Canada’s role in Canada’s critical materials future.”
Canada is rich in critical mineral resources but long-term competitiveness increasingly depends on the ability to process, refine, manufacture, and transform those resources into the high-value materials needed for advanced manufacturing, clean energy, defence and digital technologies.
The aim of the Alliance is to accelerate the sustainable integration of Western and Northern Canada into national and allied critical minerals supply chains. It acts as a coordinated platform to move regional opportunities from strategy to execution.
The Alliance also focuses on advancing Canada’s opportunities beyond extraction. Its focus is also on midstream processing, refining, materials production and circularity. To do so, the Alliance is connecting organisations across sectors and jurisdictions to reduce project risk, accelerate decision-making and strengthen investment readiness.
In late 2025, the Alliance hosts two engagements in Central Alberta. This October, it expands into Northern Alberta, and in 2027, it will extend engagements across Western and Northern Canada.
The coalition is inviting governments, industry, Indigenous Nations, investors, researchers and communities to work together to create the conditions that attract investment and maximise long-term economic, environmental, and social value.
