Community-Led Energy Planning and Sustainability Assessment: A Partnership with Inuit in NunatuKavut, Labrador

• Main Author: Mercer, Nicholas Matthew John
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of Waterloo 2020
• Subjects: Indigenous; off-grid; diesel; sustainability; energy; support; acceptance; perceptions; renewable; sovereignty; Labrador; Canada; First Nations; inuit
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10012/16173

Canada is a global leader in renewable energy development. However, electricity-generation differs dramatically in off-grid communities, wherein 190 of 258 communities rely almost exclusively on diesel-generation. Of these 258 off-grid communities, 170 are First Nations, Inuit, or Métis. As such, off-grid diesel-dependence in Canada must be thought of as an issue disproportionately impacting Indigenous Peoples. While a growing body of research asserts the economic, environmental, and societal impacts of diesel-generation, and several outsider stakeholders have called for a rapid transition to renewable energies in Indigenous off-grid communities, there is limited research which examines the perspectives of Indigenous Peoples themselves on the impacts of off-grid energy systems or support for sustainable energies. As such, the Indigenous right of free, prior, and informed consent for development is often neglected in this discourse. Working in partnership with the NunatuKavut Community Council [NCC] – the governing council which represents Inuit predominantly in south and central Labrador - and nine diesel-dependent communities, this community-based participatory doctoral dissertation seeks to respond to NCC priorities and address these critical gaps in the literature. The research objectives included: (1) to determine how existing energy systems impact the sustainability of off-grid communities in NunatuKavut; and (2) to implement participatory methodologies to assess factors which influence community support for sustainable energies. The research relies predominantly on energy deployment and local sustainability theory. A theoretical framework which emphasises substantive (i.e. measurable impacts), procedural (i.e. perceptions and acceptance), and endogenous development as critical components of sustainability. This theoretical framework has a great deal of overlap with the community renewable energy literature, which emphasises both process and outcome dimensions of sustainable energy projects. We utilize a ...