R (E) C

Building resilience and advancing meaningful opportunities for people and the environment

Collaboration

& Dialogue

Rigorous analysis
Established expertise
Actionable solutions
Undivided service

Resilience

Resource use

Respect

Strategic Regulatory Navigation

Resilience design
Adaptive management
Systems thinking
Meaningful participation of vulnerable groups
Group facilitation

(E)

Environment

Equity

Socio-Economics

Impact Assessments

Socio-economic
Cultural
Environmental
Psycho-social
Cumulative effects

Community

Cultural well-being

Capacity building

Indigenous Consultation

Meaningful participation
Indigenous knowledge incorporation
Increased agency in the regulatory process
Improved mitigation and equity measures

About

R(E)C was founded by Ruari Carthew in 2024 after several successful years as a sole proprietor. Ruari has worked on projects encompassing over 52 Indigenous governments or organizations, spanning 17 different environmental assessment regimes and regulatory agencies.

Since 2021, Ruari has provided senior capacity support to two niche organization’s specializing in Indigenous rights and interests and community well-being.

Firelight is an Indigenous-owned consulting group working with Indigenous and local communities in Canada to provide high quality research, policy, planning, mapping, negotiation, and advisory services. As a subconsultant, Ruari worked closely with Firelight’s Socio-Economics and Environmental Assessment teams to provide senior support and capacity for projects and clients across Canada.
PlanIt North provides expertise in local governance, planning and resource management. As a subconsultant, Ruari worked closely with PlanIt North’s Planning and Research teams to provide senior regulatory and permitting support, community economic development planning, and strategic planning support in northern Canada.

provides capacity support. R(E)C will work with your team to boost capacity and help get your final deliverable across the finish line! Get in touch and explore how R(E)C can help strengthen your team.

Senior Advisor & Capacity Support

Ruari Carthew, M.Sc., is a socio-economics specialist and environmental regulatory adviser with 18 years of professional experience spanning the public, private, and NGO sectors.

Ruari works extensively with impact assessments

and community well-being issues facing Indigenous groups and communities. He is a resilience theory

and adaptive management practitioner focused on making resource management meaningful and sustainable.

Ruari was raised in the Canadian subarctic, where he was a dog musher, runner, and paddler. He completed undergraduate work in Canada at the University of Victoria and post-graduate work at the University of the Arctic in Finland and Stockholm University in Sweden.

Ruari lives with his family in Sweden; working remotely and traveling to collaborate in-person with clients around the world.

R(E)C works to increase agency and equity for those most affected by development projects. Increasing the level of participation and knowledge integration in decision-making reduces undesired impacts and produces wins for all parties. This is how we build sustainability.

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Affirming social equity

and enabling responsible stewardship.

Project Highlights

Writing/Reports

Critical review of cumulative impacts associated with mining, highways, flood-water diversion projects, and of socio-economic legacies of development on heavily impacted Indigenous communities.
Development of environmental assessment best practices guidelines

adaptive management
cumulative effects assessment
cultural impact assessments
traditional knowledge incorporation
mitigation measures, monitoring, and reporting

Development of plain language regulatory guidelines for:

Indigenous participation in the EA process (British Columbia Environmental Assessment Office)
Incorporation of cultural mitigation and accommodation in the EA process (Impact Assessment Agency of Canada)

Expert support in drafting speaking notes for the Chief of the Assembly of First Nations for their address to the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources in their review of Bill S-5 (An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999).

Senior EA Review

Senior social, cultural, and economic well-being EA officer at the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Review Board (2015-2018). Author of the human environment components of two gold-standard EAs for the meaningful participation of Indigenous groups in the EA process:

Jay Project (Diavik Diamond Mines) (EA1314-01) (co-lead)
Tłı̨chǫ All-season Road project (EA1617-01) (co-lead)

Senior member of EA project team for a high-speed train project between Gothenburg and Borås, Sweden.

IRELAND