"Borealis Geothermal is grateful to the WES for funding our work on the Kitselas Geothermal project. The funding came at a time when we were still exploring the area. Had we not had that funding, we would not have been able to continue the project."
Transcript
[Music starts]
[Text on screen:
Women Entrepreneurship Strategy
Success Story – Borealis Geothermal]
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[Interview with Alison Thompson interspersed with clips of certificates and awards, a geothermal drilling site, geysers, employees in the office and mounted photographs of field work displayed throughout the workplace]
[Text on screen:
Alison Thompson / CEO, Borealis Geothermal]
I’m Alison Thompson, the CEO of Borealis Geothermal. What led me to start the business is I’m a chemical engineer and I started my career in oil and gas and even coal–so hydrocarbons and the fossil fuel industry. And through working in those industries, I realized it didn’t actually have to be that way. You could live more in harmony with energy.
And so when we started Borealis Geothermal, what we really wanted to do was give Canadian industry the ability and some options to decarbonize and to reach their net-zero goals—and to all do this together by growing the economy and protecting the environment. So I think being a woman and the idea that I could multitask was really helpful—the idea that women sometimes focus on the future and also bringing people along with them.
The WES, or the Women’s Entrepreneurship Strategy, helped Borealis in many ways. You know, first off, it provided us that security of not having to continue to finance or look for financing. It allowed us to just kind of slow down and focus on our projects.
And so that allowed us to make, actually, an amazing amount of progress, not just on the project, but allowed our projects to make a difference. And so what are we doing? We are growing a brand new community, and we’re doing it in a renewable way. Borealis Geothermal has many goals, but they really revolve around delivering value—value to all of our stakeholders.
That includes, of course, the teammates we work with, the communities and partners and customers, but also the actual employees here as well. We all want to come together to use our skills and our talents and technologies to do good, to have a purpose in life. And so our main goal at Borealis Geothermal is to balance the economy with the environment, and there would be no trade off. And we think we can grow the economy without sacrificing the environment.
Borealis Geothermal is grateful to the Women’s Entrepreneurship Strategy program for funding our work with the Kitselas Geothermal project. The funding came at a point in time where we are still exploring the area. And since that time, we’ve been able to move through different permitting phases. And this is a huge milestone for the Kitselas Geothermal project.
And we’re really excited that the funding a few years ago from WES got us to this point. Had we not had that funding, we would not have had the confidence or the financing to be able to continue the project.
[Text on screen:
Find out how the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy can help you. Visit canada.ca/women-entrepreneurship]
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