Award recognizes leadership in sustainable business priorities
LOS ANGELES, October 31, 2022 – Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) today announced the company was recently honored with the top “Business Transformation Award” at the, 2022 Responsible Business Awards, hosted by Reuters Events. SoCalGas was among 700 global companies considered across 16 categories. The Business Transformation category recognized companies that have established truly transformative sustainability priorities. Entries were evaluated on the degree to which their transformation plans had the potential to create impact at scale in their sector and beyond.
SoCalGas was also named a finalist for the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award which recognizes efforts “that best demonstrates measurable impact in promoting progressive diversity values around investment, strategy, education or recruitment – with the goal in mind to ensure a more just and equal society.” An awards ceremony was held earlier this month in London.
“SoCalGas is a leader in sustainability with innovations across our business,” said SoCalGas CEO Scott Drury. “From the delivery of renewable natural gas to support clean transportation, to powering company facilities with renewable energy, to creating a Customer Council on Decarbonization to help major energy users decarbonize their operations, SoCalGas is advancing its mission to build the cleanest, safest, most innovative energy company in America. We are proud to be recognized by Reuters for making a meaningful difference in our industry, communities, and beyond.”
“The judges were impressed by the bold target of eliminating 100% of vented methane gas, an underreported issue that has been ignored for too long,” said Ed Long, Head of Sustainable Business Events at Reuters Events. “The measures being taken by SoCalGas upstream along with the granularity of planning was very strong, and the impact and scalability of implementing this solution have the potential to be orders of magnitude greater than the impact of other commendable initiatives.”
SoCalGas is actively developing an industry-leading portfolio of scalable clean fuels demonstration projects with partners from private industry, the US Department of Energy and California Energy Commission, and leading research institutions such as the University of California, Irvine and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Clean fuels like green hydrogen could support decarbonized and reliable electric generation, clean high-heat manufacturing, and would help California reach its zero-emissions vehicle goals.
Last year, SoCalGas announced its aspiration to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in its operations and the energy it delivers by 2045 – aligning with the State of California’s carbon neutrality goals – and earlier this year released its ASPIRE 2045 Sustainability Strategy to help reach that goal.
As part of its transformative efforts, SoCalGas is accelerating its work to leverage existing infrastructure to deliver carbon neutral fuels like renewable natural gas and clean hydrogen, and to permanently remove carbon emissions from the atmosphere.
Those efforts also include the company’s announcement to develop Angeles Link, an energy infrastructure system under development that could deliver reliable green hydrogen at scale to the Los Angeles Basin for use in electric generation and hard-to-electrify sectors.
SoCalGas is also constructing a renewable hydrogen microgrid and home as part of its [H2] Innovation Experience. The renewable hydrogen microgrid for the [H2] Innovation Experience is a proof-of-concept project for resilient, clean energy using an electrolyzer to convert solar energy to hydrogen and a fuel cell to supply electricity to a home, neighborhood, or small business. The project was named a World-Changing Idea in North America by Fast Company.
As part of the company’s sustainability efforts, SoCalGas is also making investments to advance a diverse, equitable and inclusive culture in the communities it serves, including a commitment to invest approximately $50 million over the next five years in underserved communities and purchasing 42% - nearly $1 billion – of all our goods and services from women, minority, LGBT, and persons with disabilities business enterprises in 2021.
Today, nearly all of SoCalGas’ buildings are powered by renewable electricity, the company has accelerated the conversion of its fleet vehicles to zero emissions models, and it has reduced methane emissions from its system by nearly 40% since 2015, efforts that are expected to help reach California’s carbon neutrality goals.
Click here to read CEO Scott Drury’s own words on the Business Transformation Award.
To learn more about SoCalGas’ sustainability efforts, visit https://www.socalgas.com/sustainability.
About SoCalGas
Headquartered in Los Angeles, SoCalGas® is the largest gas distribution utility in the United States. SoCalGas delivers affordable, reliable, and increasingly renewable gas service to 21.8 million consumers across 24,000 square miles of Central and Southern California. Gas delivered through the company's pipelines will continue to play a key role in California's clean energy transition—providing electric grid reliability and supporting wind and solar energy deployment.
SoCalGas' mission is to build the cleanest, safest and most innovative energy company in America. In support of that mission, SoCalGas aspires to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in its operations and delivery of energy by 2045 and to replacing 20 percent of its traditional natural gas supply to core customers with renewable natural gas (RNG) by 2030. Renewable natural gas is made from waste created by dairy farms, landfills, and wastewater treatment plants. SoCalGas is also committed to investing in its gas delivery infrastructure while keeping bills affordable for customers. SoCalGas is a subsidiary of Sempra (NYSE: SRE), an energy infrastructure company based in San Diego.
For more information visit socalgas.com/newsroom or connect with SoCalGas on Twitter (@SoCalGas), Instagram (@SoCalGas) and Facebook.
This press release contains statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions with respect to the future, involve risks and uncertainties, and are not guarantees. Future results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements represent our estimates and assumptions only as of the date of this press release. We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or other factors.
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Factors, among others, that could cause actual results and events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statement include risks and uncertainties relating to: decisions, investigations, regulations, issuances or revocations of permits and other authorizations, renewals of franchises, and other actions by (i) the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), U.S. Department of Energy, and other regulatory and governmental bodies and (ii) the U.S. and states, counties, cities and other jurisdictions therein in which we do business; the success of business development efforts and construction projects, including risks in (i) completing construction projects or other transactions on schedule and budget, (ii) realizing anticipated benefits from any of these efforts if completed, and (iii) obtaining the consent or approval of partners or other third parties, including governmental and regulatory bodies; civil and criminal litigation, regulatory inquiries, investigations, arbitrations and other proceedings, including those related to the natural gas leak at the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility; changes to laws and regulations; cybersecurity threats, including by state and state-sponsored actors, to the energy grid, storage and pipeline infrastructure, information and systems used to operate our businesses, and confidentiality of our proprietary information and personal information of our customers and employees, including ransomware attacks on our systems and the systems of third-parties with which we conduct business, all of which have become more pronounced due to recent geopolitical events and other uncertainties, such as the war in Ukraine; failure of our counterparties to honor their contracts and commitments; actions by credit rating agencies to downgrade our credit ratings or to place those ratings on negative outlook and our ability to borrow on favorable terms and meet our debt service obligations; the impact of energy and climate policies, laws, rules and disclosures, as well as related goals and actions of companies in our industry, including actions to reduce or eliminate reliance on natural gas generally and any deterioration of or increased uncertainty in the political or regulatory environment for California natural gas distribution companies and the risk of nonrecovery for stranded assets; the pace of the development and adoption of new technologies in the energy sector, including those designed to support governmental and private party energy and climate goals, and our ability to timely and economically incorporate them into our business; weather, natural disasters, pandemics, accidents, equipment failures, explosions, acts of terrorism, information system outages or other events that disrupt our operations, damage our facilities and systems, cause the release of harmful materials, cause fires or subject us to liability for damages, fines and penalties, some of which may be disputed or not covered by insurers, may not be recoverable through regulatory mechanisms or may impact our ability to obtain satisfactory levels of affordable insurance; inflationary and interest rate pressures, volatility in commodity prices, our ability to effectively hedge these risks, and their impact, as applicable, on our cost of capital and the affordability of customer rates; the availability of natural gas and natural gas storage capacity, including disruptions caused by limitations on the withdrawal of natural gas from storage facilities; the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on capital projects, regulatory approvals and the execution of our operations; changes in tax and trade policies, laws and regulations, including tariffs, revisions to international trade agreements and sanctions, such as those that have been imposed and that may be imposed in the future in connection with the war in Ukraine, which may increase our costs, reduce our competitiveness, impact our ability to do business with certain counterparties, or impair our ability to resolve trade disputes; and other uncertainties, some of which are difficult to predict and beyond our control.
These risks and uncertainties are further discussed in the reports that the company has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). These reports are available through the EDGAR system free-of-charge on the SEC's website, www.sec.gov, and on Sempra’s website, www.sempra.com. Investors should not rely unduly on any forward-looking statements.
Sempra Infrastructure, Sempra Texas, Sempra Mexico, Sempra Texas Utilities, Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC (Oncor) and Infraestructura Energética Nova, S.A.P.I. de C.V. (IEnova) are not the same companies as the California utilities, San Diego Gas & Electric Company or Southern California Gas Company, and Sempra Infrastructure, Sempra Texas, Sempra Mexico, Sempra Texas Utilities, Oncor and IEnova are not regulated by the CPUC.
