Indigenous Engagement and Inclusion at Enbridge: The Lifecycle Approach
Originally published in Enbridge's 2021 Sustainability Report Report
Across North America, there’s an awakening to Indigenous history, culture, rights, engagement and inclusion, which is placing more focus on the evolving legal and constitutional framework, fostering greater political and societal attention, and providing opportunities to weave Indigenous knowledge, teachings and perspectives into decision-making.
Along with this, the recent and ongoing discoveries of the unmarked graves of Indigenous children at former residential schools in Canada are a painful reminder of the inequities and injustices Indigenous peoples across North America have endured and continue to face today. We have all inherited this position in time together—and we all have a role to play in educating ourselves about the truth of the history of Indigenous peoples and then embarking on a path toward reconciliation.
While we, at Enbridge, have expanded Indigenous inclusion within our projects and operations, we recognize our journey toward reconciliation is just that, a journey. More time is needed to listen, learn, understand and adapt. We are committed to this, and we are committed to bridging the gaps that exist to develop meaningful and sustainable outcomes for Indigenous groups for generations to come.
We intend to further outline commitments in 2022 which will form the basis of our plan of action going forward. In the interim, we produced an updated report in early 2022, which discusses our approach to Indigenous relationships and progress made since 2018.
Indigenous engagement and lifecycle approach
We are committed to building respectful, constructive and enduring relationships that foster trust with and generate benefits for Indigenous groups over the lifecycle of our assets. In 2019, we adopted our Indigenous Lifecycle Engagement Framework, which operationalizes our commitment and outlines internal guidelines for engagement with Indigenous groups. Through the implementation of the framework, we have introduced a number of standards of practice to provide a consistent, respectful approach that aims to recognize the diversity and uniqueness of the Indigenous groups with whom we engage. Please refer to our Indigenous Update Report for more details.
Continuing our path to reconciliation: Indigenous engagement and inclusion—An update
