The Better Ideas Show brought together more than three dozen guests during Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Canada Investment Summit to talk about nation-building projects that are practical, affordable, and ready to build the new climate economy that will diversify our trade and protect Canada’s sovereignty.

Serena Mendizabal, Managing Director of Sacred Earth Solar, discussed the organization’s mission to build a clean energy economy with Indigenous communities. Established after its founder, Melina Laboucan-Massimo, witnessed a devastating oil spill in her community in 2011, Sacred Earth has completed 10 projects and is working on two more, always starting from a foundation of community leadership and consent.

“For us at Sacred Earth, we aren’t just waiting for the just transition to happen for us,” Mendizabal told The Energy Mix. “We’re actively building it alongside communities now.”

Sacred Earth Solar currently has eight community partners, Mendizabal said, with Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination at the core of every project.

“There’s a really big difference between First Nations‑owned projects [versus those] where we have proponents come in and tell us they know exactly what they should do to transition our communities,” she said. “They don’t know our communities the way we know our communities, and that’s why Sacred Earth works on community‑led projects.”

Mendizabal contrasted Sacred Earth’s approach with large-scale fossil fuel projects, stressing the overwhelming health and governance benefits of working from the ground up. She also pointed to the tremendous growth in Indigenous renewable energy development, with more than 250 medium- to large-scale projects and 1,250 community renewable energy installations already in operation.

“First Nations, Métis, Inuit people own or are beneficiaries of 20% of all Canada’s electricity generating infrastructure, so we’re quite literally leading the transition,” she told The Mix. “The way we’re doing that is by bringing community along with us.”