--- title: How Native Communities Are Embracing Clean Power description: Seneca Environmental, a division of the Seneca Nation's investment arm, is working with indigenous communities to develop renewable energy projects on their own lands. canonical: https://time.com/6963140/seneca-environmental-native-communities-clean-energy/ author: Joey Lautrup article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-05-06T13:25:03.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T17:24:23.072Z article:section: Climate og:title: How Native Communities Are Embracing Clean Power og:description: Seneca Environmental is helping native communities develop renewable energy projects on their own lands og:url: https://time.com/6963140/seneca-environmental-native-communities-clean-energy/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Native Communities Are Embracing Clean Power twitter:description: Seneca Environmental is helping native communities develop renewable energy projects on their own lands twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # How the Seneca Nation Is Helping Native Communities Embrace Clean Energy > Sponsored content. 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Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-futureproof-2026q3/newsletters?i=3f1a8600-d1d9-4b9c-b3a1-2d8a176da3c0&cr=time-nl-futureproof-2026q3-v1) ## Video: How the Seneca Nation is Helping Native Communities Embrace Clean Energy [Watch (HLS stream): How the Seneca Nation is Helping Native Communities Embrace Clean Energy](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/8QuMxE7X.m3u8) (4:00)  _Published 2024-04-03. Seneca Environmental, a division of the Seneca Nation's investment arm, is working with indigenous communities to develop renewable energy projects on their own lands._ May 6, 2024 1:25 PM UTC  by [Joey Lautrup](https://time.com/author/joey-lautrup/)  ## Joey Lautrup May 6, 2024 1:25 PM UTC Seneca Environmental, a division of the Seneca Nation’s investment arm, is working with indigenous communities to develop renewable energy projects on their own lands. ## Transcript I think a really unique approach that we're taking as a tribally owned company in the energy space is bringing awareness and thought to how energy projects will play out and how that affects the land because it is so valuable to our people and to Native people across the country, especially as you've lost so much of it already. The Seneca nation is one of the six nations of the Iroquois or who initially Confederacy were located in Western New York. We're about half of our members live. There are just over 8,500 enrolled senecas Nations and tribes can own and operate for-profit businesses, which is really a need for government in the United States that the only form of government that can do that. They don't have any other shareholders. They don't have any investors, but they end up doing business on behalf of and especially for the benefit of the entire nation tribe. Anthony's can now invest in Renewables at competitive prices and can win bids against private Developers. Our goal really is to build up this Energy Enterprise across Indian country by partnering with other native nations and tribes and Pueblos and helping them to achieve their energy goals, which may be something as simple as up. We just need a micro grid to help us kind of get some of our systems online and ensure that we have that energy resiliency here or hey, we're looking to really develop the economic Enterprises within our own nation. And we we see energy as a way to do this. Sonic energy is are on territory utility. They are responsible for several of our energy projects. We have to energy projects on our territories right now 1.5 megawatt wind turbine on Seneca lands and at to Mega watt solar array on Seneca lands, both of which feed power back into the utilities that they're connected to any utility gives a bill credit to the residents of those territories in order to pass the profits of those projects on to the residence back to the nation to fund health programs educational programs culture and other infrastructure, which is really essential. It's not just straight to business or money or whatever the economics but kind of the impact to community that's really essential shared experience and values can be the difference-maker when it comes to business dealings or energy projects or you know, anything related to to the land and the community and what's happening around where people live In ten years, I think that you're going to see thousands of megawatts of renewable energy projects that are owned by new communities bring to the Forefront the work that native peoples have been doing forever is going to be really essential and ensuring that the Earth is taken care of in the right ways. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6963140/seneca-environmental-native-communities-clean-energy/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6963140/seneca-environmental-native-communities-clean-energy/"},"headline":"How the Seneca Nation Is Helping Native Communities Embrace Clean Energy","datePublished":"2024-05-06T13:25:03.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T17:24:23.072Z","description":"The Seneca Nation is helping native communities develop renewable energy projects on their own lands","url":"https://time.com/6963140/seneca-environmental-native-communities-clean-energy/","keywords":["Environment","climate change","climate","AmazonFutures24"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Joey Lautrup","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/joey-lautrup/"}],"articleSection":"Climate","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/climate/","name":"Climate"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6963140/seneca-environmental-native-communities-clean-energy/","name":"How the Seneca Nation Is Helping Native Communities Embrace Clean Energy"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"How the Seneca Nation is Helping Native Communities Embrace Clean Energy","description":"Seneca Environmental, a division of the Seneca Nation's investment arm, is working with indigenous communities to develop renewable energy projects on their own lands.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/8QuMxE7X/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2024-04-03T17:25:00.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/8QuMxE7X.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/6963140/seneca-environmental-native-communities-clean-energy/","duration":"PT4M","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/6963140/seneca-environmental-native-communities-clean-energy/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```