Reducing Our Building and Facility Footprint

Energy, Water and Waste Reduction

To meet our five-year targets, we are executing a multi-faceted strategy to invest in key facility improvements and to spearhead a major effort to engage employees.

¹ Energy and water goals are compared to a 2009 baseline.

² Actual results are shown for 2010.

³ The energy reduction goal is measured in million BTUs (MMBTUs) and includes 156 sites in 2010 and 168 sites in 2011.

⁴ The water reduction goal is measured in gallons and includes 91 sites in 2010 and 125 sites in 2011.

⁵ The waste diversion rate includes six sites in 2010 and 48 sites in 2011. It measures the diversion rate in the final quarter of each year.

Our efforts include a combination of making smart investments in new and upgraded building infrastructure and doing so in a more strategic manner, such as coordinating capital improvements for energy and water efficiency with necessary lifecycle replacements and working to integrate environmental considerations into our every day facility projects and maintenance practices. We also continue to engage our broader workforce, including partnering with an active Grassroots Green Network that brings together employee volunteers to support energy, water and waste reduction awareness and initiatives.

There were numerous highlights in 2010:

¹ Energy use is measured in MMBTUs and the sites include offices and service yards.

² Water use is measured in gallons and the sites include offices and service yards.

³ The six sites represented approximately one third of the waste produced by the buildings at PG&E’s offices and service yards.

⁴ Consistent with industry best practice and LEED™ certification criteria, the methodology for measuring this target was updated in 2011 to measure the diversion rate in the final quarter of each year rather than the diversion rate over the full calendar year.

At our electric meter repair facility in Fremont, we replaced the existing metal halide and high pressure sodium lighting with new energy efficient fluorescent lighting and controls. This one step reduced our energy use by more than 4 percent while also providing better light quality for our employees.

In 2010, we continued to install “smart” irrigation control systems—targeting seven sites with significant landscaping. Drawing on information delivered wirelessly from more than 40,000 weather stations, the controllers automatically schedule irrigation based on site-specific landscape needs and local weather conditions, eliminating the need to manually adjust irrigation as the weather changes and providing a more accurate quantity of water when needed.

Engaging Employees in Waste Reduction

Through a series of fun and engaging “waste minimization contests,” a growing number of employees are helping PG&E reduce waste one bin at a time. As part of PG&E’s new Grassroots Green Network, a group of “green ambassadors” is championing the contests for their respective office locations.

Last year, the volunteers spearheaded two competitions involving roughly 1,500 employees at our corporate headquarters—yielding up to 15 percent improvements in the waste diversion rate. The competitions featured brown bag lunches to educate employees on proper waste disposal, team building exercises and weekly prizes for employees that properly managed their waste. Volunteer judges reviewed sorting techniques and measured waste diverted from the landfill—rewarding winning departments with a gourmet pizza lunch. The momentum will continue in 2011 with additional competitions.

We also continue to give employees specific actions they can take to reduce energy and water consumption, such as turning off all equipment and lights when not in use, reducing operating hours when appropriate, reporting and repairing all leaks in irrigation and plumbing and conserving water when washing vehicles.

Energy Consumption Statistics

These figures represent electricity and natural gas usage at 156 facilities managed by PG&E’s Corporate Real Estate department.

¹ The data reflects the 12 month period from December to November and is normalized for weather. Additionally, the 2009 data was updated from the previous report.

² Figures are reported in the industry standard of BTU per square foot, which incorporates all of the energy used in a facility into one comparative number that takes into account efficiency variations in the utilization of the energy.

Last year, we continued to offset the greenhouse gas emissions from the energy used by all our buildings through PG&E’s ClimateSmart™ program. PG&E was the program’s first participant, committing nearly $1.5 million of shareholder funding over three years to offset the energy use in the company’s offices, service centers, maintenance facilities and other buildings. In 2010, this amounted to nearly 48,000 metric tons of CO₂ reductions.

Water Use Statistics

In 2010, we made continued progress toward developing a comprehensive “water footprint.” Please see the Water Conservation and Management section for statistics on PG&E’s water usage.

Waste Generation Statistics

PG&E strives to minimize use of and recycle non-hazardous waste, such as glass, paper and certain metals. These figures represent the total waste diverted from the landfill at six pilot sites managed by PG&E’s Corporate Real Estate department.

Waste Diversion at Corporate Real Estate Facilities¹

Engaging Employees in CFL Recycling

Many PG&E employees have put energy efficiency in action by installing compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) in their homes. Last year, employees took another important step by leading a month-long CFL recycling drive at our corporate headquarters.

While CFLs can save considerable energy compared to incandescent bulbs, they also contain small amounts of mercury, which can get released into the environment if disposed in the trash. That’s why used CFLs must be managed through special recycling programs.

During Energy Awareness Month in October, employee volunteers distributed puncture-resistant, vapor-tight recycling bags so co-workers could safely transport used CFLs from their home to the office. All told, the drive collected more than 530 bulbs—roughly 1 from every 10 employees at the site—which PG&E then recycled. In addition to providing a convenient way to recycle the bulbs, the drive helped raise awareness about the proper management of used CFLs.

PG&E also actively works to raise public awareness about the need to recycle used CFLs and provides information on recycling locations. Building on our involvement in the California Department of Toxic Substances Control’s California Take-It-Back Partnership, we successfully partnered with four local governments to increase public awareness and fund drop-off containers and disposal services that helped collect more than 300,000 used CFLs and fluorescent tubes. Building on this pilot program, PG&E is developing a standard menu of low-cost marketing, education and outreach tools to help other local governments conduct public outreach campaigns throughout the state.

Other examples of waste reduction efforts in 2010 include the following:

The following table provides statistics on PG&E’s waste generation.

¹ Refers to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).

² Refers to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

³ These figures were previously reported in kilograms. The 2008 recycling surge was due to increased oil-filled electrical equipment project work.

⁴ These figures include PCB Waste <50 ppm PCB. Additionally, PG&E is no longer including drained oil-filled electrical equipment in these totals because this waste stream is accounted for as scrap metal.

Investing in Green Buildings

In 2010, we increased our number of projects in the process of obtaining LEED™ certification to seven as part of our ongoing efforts to certify new buildings and large remodel projects. As shown below, this includes a range of facilities throughout our service area.

Last year, we performed a major remodel of the 20,000 square foot 25th floor of our headquarters building in San Francisco. We received LEED-CI (Commercial Interiors) Gold certification for the project, which included:

1. Recycling 75 percent of the construction waste,
2. Using dual flush and low-flow plumbing fixtures to reduce potable water use by 30 percent,
3. Reducing lighting usage by half through daylight-responsive controls and other strategies and
4. Incorporating low-emitting carpets, paints, adhesives and sealants.

IT Energy Savings

PG&E continues to implement a variety of innovative measures to improve energy efficiency in our IT services function. Last year, Computerworld magazine ranked PG&E among the 12 winners of its Top Green-IT Organizations awards, recognizing leading organizations that are “striving to find new ways to reduce energy consumption of their IT equipment and use technology to conserve energy.”

Sliding doors and plastic curtains isolate areas for cooling at PG&E’s primary data center, which increases energy efficiency.

Our work includes segmenting our primary data center into “PODs” and moving virtual servers, which used to be grouped by project, into a single pool of servers within those PODs in order to consolidate further. Each POD contains about a dozen racks and is walled off by plastic curtains to isolate cooling and increase efficiency. A major upgrade to the data center also incorporated a number of energy-saving technologies, from variable frequency drives on cooling towers to chilled water pumps and newer air handling units. Real-time sensors help to continuously manage data center efficiency.

With server virtualization technology, a single physical server is able to run multiple virtual servers, each with its own operating system and software. Reducing the number of servers lowers the energy needed to run and cool the server fleet. At the end of 2010, more than half of our server fleet was running in virtual instances.

Also, in 2010, PG&E purchased only Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) Gold- or Silver-level laptops, desktop computers and monitors—products that have demonstrated reduced environmental impacts. At the end of 2010, approximately 98 percent of our standard personal computer items were Gold or Silver EPEAT-compliant, increasing from 89 percent at the end of 2009.