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But when it comes to committing capital on R&D, where the payoff is sometimes years away even though the impact could be transformational, the appetite for risk disappears.

That’s why the agreement among 13 companies to form the Canadian Oil Sands Innovation Alliance was seen as remarkable for an industry known for its penchant to closely guard anything that could be a competitive advantage. The push to facilitate the sharing of research protocols and existing intellectual property — as has been done with 777 distinct technologies and innovations that to date have cost $950 million to develop — remains unique in the energy world.

But what if we shift the lens a bit and see COSIA as the start of something even bigger?

Last year, the co-founder of electric car manufacturer Tesla lifted the curtain on all of its electric car patents.

Elon Musk said he saw it as a way for Tesla to contribute to stemming the “carbon crisis” and that benefits could flow as a result of a having a common technology platform facilitated by this “open-source” approach.

It’s not only Tesla that is operating under this model. In 2007, Google open-sourced its Android operating system. The results of that decision speak for themselves, with the Android system used in more than 80 per cent of smartphones around the world.

Let’s not forget the XPrize, which effectively launched private space exploration and is about to announce a carbon-related competition that will award a prize to the team that comes up with the best technology to convert carbon dioxide into valuable products.