On Country – Australian Communities Database

“On Country” is an initiative that aims to demonstrate to industry the opportunities that exist, when completing infrastructure projects with Indigenous communities. We aim to engage communities and industry, sharing and gaining knowledge and experiences, that provide examples of the benefits of working with communities. Indigenous Energy Australia and partners will identify the common outcomes sort by industry and communities, and the challenges they have encountered when working together. Finally, “On Country” will draw clear links between the circular economy, including sustainable practice and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander science, culture, beliefs and practices. “On Country” aims to target learnings in six essential sectors: Energy, Water (Waste, Storm, Potable), Agriculture, Waste, Transport and Telecommunications. All of these sectors are identified as fundamental enablers of economic development in all communities.

On Country is a basic initiative that is critical to IEA’s entire business and critical to the entire industry. There is minimal data available on the common issues that communities are experiencing, and the common challenges faced when industry engage communities. On Country is a national engagement program through which IEA will facilitate the collection of data on challenges that communities and industry face, and will collate this information in an interactive, accessible and easy to understand database – The Australian Communities Database.

On Country will engage communities with industry partners, embedding in communities whilst quantifying and qualifying general community challenges (employment, income, education, health, etc.) and issues with industry engagement (accessibility, false promises, lack of appreciation for community value, etc.) in a sharable manner. The program will do vice-versa with industry, bringing communities to corporate headquarters and operating hubs, to understand the challenges industry face in general (automation, decarbonisation, conscious consumerism, efficiency, decentralisation) and the issues they encounter when engaging discrete communities (accessibility, knowledge of hierarchy, motivation, etc.).

On Country will validate the problems and gain a deep understanding of the challenges that communities and industry face, presenting learnings in real-time, connecting communities and organisations that have matching issues. The Australian Communities Database will present knowledge in a format that ensures communities, industry, government and academia can easily understand and pinpoint information that relates to them, and that ultimately ensures findings ‘sink in’.

Main Goals

• Engage Industry and Communities about the common outcomes they seek
• Engage Industry and Communities about the common challenges they face when working with one another
• Quantify the links between sustainability and the circular economy, and Indigenous science.
• Share this knowledge with industry and community to establish valuable connections and achieve shared outcomes.
• Highlight at a high level what outcomes organisations should be pursuing.