Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Report 2022

Our Approach

As we provide safe, reliable, affordable, and clean energy to customers, we also strive to be responsible stewards of the lands we own and where we operate. This includes protecting endangered species and enhancing the habitat at three PG&E facilities where we have safe harbor agreements: Antioch Dunes in Contra Costa County, Tulare Hill in Santa Clara County, and PG&E’s hydro lands in Shasta County.

PG&E also employs habitat conservation plans (HCP) to protect threatened and federally designated endangered species and their habitats, while enabling PG&E to maintain and operate our gas and electric infrastructure. Our entire service area now has federal coverage for endangered species most likely to be found near our gas and electric infrastructure:

• Our San Francisco Bay Area HCP protects 18 wildlife species and 13 plant species throughout the nine Bay Area counties.
• Our San Joaquin Valley HCP protects 23 wildlife and 42 plant species within nine counties of the San Joaquin Valley.
• Our Multiple-Region HCP protects 24 animal and 12 plant species, 35 of which are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

For California-designated endangered species, PG&E is working with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife on 30-year programmatic permits. These permits are intended to provide coverage for operations and maintenance activities within the Bay Area, Mojave, and select regions in the Central Valley and Central Coast.

PG&E maintains 52,000 acres of forested land, partnering with local communities in wildfire prevention programs and collecting and storing seeds from PG&E-forested lands for future restoration purposes.

Additionally, as part of our Land Conservation Commitment, PG&E is permanently protecting more than 140,000 acres through the donations of fee title and conservation easements on watershed lands to public agencies and qualified conservation organizations. The Pacific Forest and Watershed Lands Stewardship Council, an independent nonprofit organization, identifies the organizations that receive these donations.

Given the state’s increasing wildfire risk, Pacific Gas and Electric Company is also working with other utilities and the State Water Resources Control Board on a permit related to work on gas and electric facilities requiring dredge and fill activities.

2021 Milestones

Critical Wildfire Safety and Infrastructure Work

• Renewed a programmatic special use permit for eight national parks in PG&E’s service area, facilitating expedited work review by the parks and allowing PG&E to conduct wildfire safety and other operations and maintenance activities with pre-negotiated resource protection measures. These one-year renewable permits are a precursor to a longer-term agreement for all PG&E facilities on national park lands.
• Implemented year three of our five-year special use permit from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which enables PG&E to conduct wildfire safety and other important maintenance activities in the most visited national park in the United States. It was the first programmatic permit of this kind for the National Park Service.
• Made significant progress on a state permit, which will designate conditions for PG&E’s operations and maintenance activities for the next 30 years across the nine Bay Area counties. The permit will apply to the California Tiger Salamander, Alameda Whip Snake, and Freshwater Shrimp.

Land Conservation

• Permanently protected 4,790 acres of land by completing eight land conservation commitment transactions. Fee donations were completed on five separate PG&E properties, including the transfer of 789 acres to the Pit River Tribe in Shasta County. Other fee property recipients included California State Parks, Maidu Summit Consortium, and the U.S. Forest Service. Conservation easements were recorded on three separate PG&E properties.

Habitat Conservation Plans and Conservation Commitments

• Conserved 523 acres of species habitat across our service area for three different threatened or endangered species.
• Actively managed more than 3,800 acres across 35 properties for a variety of species and habitats. This effort is related to new and ongoing conservation commitments.
• Secured and maintained the rights to conservation and preservation for 3,499 acres of habitat for various resources. These future transactions are related to ongoing HCP development efforts and existing HCP conservation goals.
• Purchased 54 acres of species, habitat, or wetland credits for individual and programmatic permits. This represents conservation of habitat for three different threatened or endangered species and three riparian/wetland habitat types.
• Restored, enhanced, or created 146 acres of riparian and species habitat for four threatened or endangered species.

Measuring Progress

PG&E restores and protects environmental habitats to fulfill state and federal regulatory requirements and to support voluntary environmental initiatives. In 2021, our efforts protected, created, or restored 722 acres of habitat, and managed over 3,800 acres of existing restoration or conservation projects.

Protected and Restored Habitat ^{Footnote 1}

	2019	2020	2021
Acres set aside and protected	8,060	2,221	576
Acres of restored habitat	162	98	146

• 1. PG&E undertook these activities to meet various regulatory requirements.¹

Protecting Birds

Since 2002, PG&E has made more than 38,100 existing power poles and towers bird-safe. In that time, we have also retrofitted nearly 39,150 power poles in areas where bird injuries or fatalities or bird-related outages have occurred. In 2021, we replaced more than 8,250 poles in designated “Raptor Concentration Zones” and built them to avian-safe construction guidelines.