It’s Friday afternoon on 4th Ave. S.W. in Calgary. Office workers come and go from the towers and pass on the sidewalk, only partially aware of a small group of activists standing with their bikes outside the BP building.

These young people, part of the Sierra Youth Coalition, have travelled a long way — some nearly 1,000 kilometres — with an environmental message. They’ve cycled from the oilsands operations north of Fort McMurray to the corporate headquarters of the oil companies to ask for a moratorium on development of the sands and to call for better environmental protection.

They’ve brought bottles of water with them from the Athabasca River, downstream from the oil plants. Their first stop is Total, the latest company to seek approval for their oilsands plans.

“Could you take a bottle of toxic water to Total?” activist Jeh Custer asks a worker heading into the building.

“Don’t harass them,” a security guard tells Custer as the worker walks by. “I’m not harassing them; I’m just asking them a question.”

“They come here to work,” says the guard, “not to answer your questions.”

A few years ago, the actions of this little group would have seemed strange in the capital city of Canada’s oil industry. But environmental concerns are now on everyone’s radar.

In April, national headlines carried the news that 500 ducks had died after landing on a tailings pond near Syncrude’s operations. Earlier this summer, Greenpeace tried to block a pipe on the same site.

Even industry is talking big about the environment — the protesters secure a meeting with a spokesman for Suncor, the second-largest company in the oilsands.

Nearly every company I call has a plan to make their operations greener.

Brad Bellows, a spokesperson for Suncor, can list his company’s environmental achievements easily: Suncor has dramatically reduced the amount of water needed to produce a barrel of oil, and the intensity of the carbon emissions released has also fallen.

But not everyone is convinced. Dan Woynillowicz, a senior policy analyst with the Pembina Institute, argues that the improvements made by the industry amount only to efficiency: things they should have done anyway to make their operations cheaper. None of the improvements, he says, have actually hurt the companies financially.

An hour or so later, the activists wait downstairs from Suncor, in another office tower a block to the east. This time, there’s a little more luck. A spokesperson agrees to meet with them and, smiling, takes them upstairs.