Excellence in sustainable development - Hydro-Québec earns the IHA Blue Planet Prize

Hydro-Québec’s Eastmain-1 development has earned the International Hydropower Association (IHA) Blue Planet Prize in recognition of the scope of the project’s environmental measures and quality of the dialogue established with Indigenous communities. The award is presented to hydropower projects that demonstrate excellence in sustainability, which Hydro-Québec earned last August when the Eastmain-1 development achieved Gold-level certification under the Hydropower Sustainability Standard.

The Eastmain-1 development, which includes Eastmain-1 and Bernard-Landry generating stations and the Rupert diversion, incorporates exceptional environmental protection measures. Moreover, in the early 2000s, before the project got underway, the Québec government and Cree Nation signed the Paix des Braves. Under the historic 50-year agreement, the Nadoshtin and Boumhounan agreements between Hydro-Québec, the Cree Nation and local communities were also enacted, ensuring contracts for Cree businesses, the application of measures to enhance and mitigate the environmental impacts on the territory, the direct participation of the Cree Nation in all the project development stages and the creation of funds to support land users and Cree communities in their adaptation to the changes brought about by the Eastmain-1 development.

“The Eastmain-1 development was a flagship project for Hydro-Québec. It was designed and defined through a very collaborative process. This project that laid the groundwork for our sustainable design approach for decades to come was made possible thanks to the Cree communities’ guidance, and the vision of our anthropologists, biologists, engineers and archaeologists. The Prize belongs to the Indigenous communities and Hydro-Québec teams who worked collaboratively on the Eastmain-1 development.” 

Claudine Bouchard - Executive Vice President and Chief Operating and Infrastructure Officer, Hydro-Québec, and President and Chief Executive Officer, Société d’énergie de la Baie James