Event

Cobalt and Deep Sea Mining: in-depth perspective

14:00 – 15:15 GMT/9:00 – 10:15 ET | 25 FEBRUARY 2025
WEBINAR

With deep sea mining (DSM) becoming an issue of increasing global interest, this webinar will offer an opportunity for all stakeholders – industry, academia, and civil society – to share views on this complex issue.

This webinar will centre around the latest policy developments in deep sea mining. As global demand for critical minerals grows, global regulatory frameworks within DSM are evolving rapidly. Industry experts and policymakers will discuss existing and developing regulations including required environmental and social impact assessments, and remaining steps towards future commercial production.

 

Agenda

Welcome Remarks & Session Introduction – Dinah McLeod, Director General, Cobalt Institute

Speakers Introductory Remarks

  • Dinah McLeod, Director General, Cobalt Institute
  • Dr. John Parianos, Knowledge Management Director, Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Authority
  • Dr. Philomene Verlaan, Special Adviser, Advisory Committee on Protection of the Sea (ACOPS)
  • Corey McLachlan, Head of Social Performance and Stakeholder Relations at The Metals Company, The Metals Company
  • Dr. Duncan Wood, Incoming President and CEO, Pacific Council
Panel Discussion, moderated by Dinah McLaren, Director General, Cobalt Institute
Q&A with audience

speakers

Corey McLachlan,
Head of Social Performance and Stakeholder Relations,

The Metals Company

Corey is an experienced community and social performance manager with experience working in the South Pacific and in Canada’s North. Corey began his career working in government before transitioning to the mining industry where he worked with Rio Tinto leading their community relations team at the Diavik Diamond Mine. While at Diavik, Corey developed sector leading practices for Indigenous business development and renegotiated modern industry leading benefit agreements. Outside of work, Corey enjoys spending time with family in the mountains and sits on the Squamish Waldorf School Board.

Dr. Duncan Wood,
President,
Pacific Council

For over 35 years, Duncan Wood, PhD, has worked in the areas of international relations and policy. He is an internationally renowned specialist on the geopolitics of energy, supply chain policy, critical minerals, Mexican politics and US-Mexican ties. He has frequently given testimony to the US Congress, is a widely quoted media source, and has published extensively on a wide range of global issues.  He is the author or editor of 12 books and more than 30 chapters and articles.

Born in Kent, England, he studied politics at Leicester University before pursuing graduate studies in political science at McMaster University and Queens University, both in Ontario, Canada. In 1996 he received his PhD and moved to Mexico City, to work at the Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico, where he became a professor of and director of the program in International Relations. After 17 years in Mexico, working on international banking supervision, energy policy and North American integration, he became the Director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. In 2021, Dr Wood was promoted to the role of Vice President for Strategy and New Initiatives at the Wilson Center and worked alongside the Board of Trustees to design a new strategic plan for the center.

Over the past decade he has served as co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Transparency and Anti-Corruption and has worked closely with the WEF on energy policy.  He is a board member of Transparency International, Signos Vitales (a Mexican public policy research organization) and Foreign Affairs Latinoamerica, and is an editorial advisor to El Universal newspaper. He has been a Fulbright Fellow and a Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS); an editorial advisor to Reforma newspaper; Technical Secretary of the Red Mexicana de Energia; a consultant with McLarty Associates, the Economist Intelligence Unit, Horizon and Eurasia Group; and owner of a speakeasy in Mexico City.

Dr. Philomène Verlaan,
Senior Adviser, Advisory Committee on Protection of the Sea; Visiting Scientist, Department of Oceanography, University of Hawai’i

Dr. Philomène Verlaan JD PhD FGS FIMarEST FSUT is an oceanographer specializing in the biogeochemistry and related ecology of deep-sea ferro-manganese nodules and crusts (PhD, Imperial College, London). She has participated in 26 oceanic research expeditions (most recently September 2024), as well as in nine research submersible dives (to 2000m water depth), so far. She is also an attorney (JD; Florida Bar) specializing in international law of the sea, with a particular focus on the marine environment, marine scientific research and marine mining.

These complementary qualifications enabled her to build a career assisting international public and private entities in negotiating the complex interface between marine science and law of the sea to achieve environmentally and commercially responsible uses of marine resources through the development and implementation of legally binding international instruments that are governed by sound science and the rule of law.

She has worked with, inter alia (in alphabetical order): the East-West Center, the Global Environment Facility, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology, the International Maritime Organization, the International Seabed Authority, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Law of the Sea Institute, the Office of the London Convention and Protocol, the Pacific Forum/CSIS, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme, the United Nations Environment Programme and the University of Hawai’i.

An author of over 60 refereed (many invited) international publications in her two professional specialties, she is regularly invited to speak on topics related to her work.

Dr. John Parianos,
Knowledge Management Director,
Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Authority

Dr Parianos is a member of the AIG, has a PhD in marine geology from the University of Évora (2021) and is a full-time employee and Knowledge Management Director at Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Authority under the Australia-Pacific Partnerships Platform. His experience includes exploration, assessment and evaluation of seabed nodule deposits and the marine environment in the Cook Islands and Clarion Clipperton Zone as well as with the management and delivery of full value chain scoping studies of this deposit type.

Dr Parianos has been the principal author of technical papers involving the regional and project-scale geology of nodule deposits and their mineral resources. He has presented to professional seabed mining industry conferences, contributed to resource estimation workshops involving the seabed mineral industry, and has also been involved with expert working groups addressing seabed mining policy.

Dinah McLeod,
Director General,
Cobalt Institute

Dinah comes with a wealth of experience in sustainability and expertise in leadership, strategic planning, and membership liaison having previously served as the CEO of the Global Cement and Concrete Association where she was responsible for overseeing membership relations, external communications, policy, and strategy. Throughout her career, Dinah worked for a range of development and public policy projects at the World Bank, as well as lead business and sustainability practices at think tanks, leadership initiatives, and private sector.

A dual Canadian and British national, Dinah holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Columbia University and a Master’s degree from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.