Legitimizing industry and multi-sectoral regulation of cumulative impacts: A comparison of mining and energy development in Athabasca, Canada and the Hunter Valley, Australia

► From a literature review, we derived three hypotheses about legitimizing cumulative impact regulation. ► To generate more hypotheses, we reviewed two cases with controversial regulatory regimes: Alberta oil sands, NSW coal fields. ► The cases suggested the hypothesis that a controversy can rapidly raise the internal legitimacy of an industry association. ► The cases suggested that multisectoral stakeholder forums have more legitimacy when all the stakeholders are local.