ENVIRONMENT  ACTIONS & INITIATIVES
 

PG&E Corporation has partnered with a number of business groups and environmental groups and taken an active role on several program and policy initiatives in its efforts to protect the environment, such as:

PG&E Corporation is a Charter Member of the California Climate Action Registry (the Registry) and sits on the Technical Advisory Board of the Registry. The Registry was created by statute to help companies and organizations with operation in California to measure their greenhouse gas emissions and establish baselines against which any future emissions reductions requirements may be applied. In 2004, PG&E certified its entity-wide CO2 emissions for 2002 and 2003. In 2003, entity-wide CO2 emissions certified for submission to the Registry totaled 842,000 tons of CO2.

PG&E Corporation is an active member of the Clean Energy Group, a coalition of environmentally progressive electric companies, committed to advancing environmental policies that balance economic growth with environmental protection. One of the Clean Energy Group’s major initiatives is passage of federal legislation that takes a market-based approach to reducing emissions from power plants, including sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx), mercury (Hg) and carbon dioxide (CO2). The Clean Energy Group is actively supporting the Clean Air Planning Act of 2005, as introduced by Representatives Bass, Bradley, Davis, and Cooper.

PG&E Corporation joined EPA’s Voluntary “SF6 Emission Reduction Partnership for Electric Power Systems” as a Charter Partner in 1999. SF6 is a colorless, odorless gas that has been identified as a highly potent greenhouse gas by the EPA. We have reduced our leak rate by more than 50 percent, since 1998, and our absolute emissions of SF6 by approximately 40 percent. Achieving these reductions is significant because SF6 is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, approximately 24,000 times as potent as CO2. In 2004, PG&E lent technical expertise to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s SF6 Work Group, which will inform measurement and reporting activities of country governments as well as international entities.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company has long been a leader in energy efficiency and conservation. In 2004, Pacific Gas and Electric Company administered 14 statewide, 4 local, and 9 partnership energy efficiency programs that avoided annual environmental impacts of 324,415 tons of CO2, 187 tons of NOX, and 114 tons of SOX; paid customers in excess of $57 million in energy efficiency rebates; and achieved savings of 117 MW, or 620,000 MWh—enough electricity to power approximately 91,553 homes for a year.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company created the Volunteer Stewardship Program (VSP) to provide additional support to the communities in which we live and work. Through the VSP, utility employees work with environmental groups such as Save San Francisco Bay Association, Russian River Watershed Cleanup Committee, and the California State Parks Foundation. In 2004, more than 500 employees from many different departments volunteered more than 2,000 hours of their time on 14 different projects ranging from river cleanups to wetland restoration.


 

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