Our Approach
The unique role we have as a provider of gas and electricity—essential services—throughout Northern and Central California means we confront choices every day with environmental, social and economic dimensions. The decisions we make impact our employees, communities, customers, shareholders and the planet. Sustainability is the frame through which we balance these dimensions so that we can deliver on our obligation to provide safe, reliable, affordable and clean energy—today and into the future.
Our integrated approach to sustainability is guided by five overarching goals: public and employee safety, delighting customers, engaging employees, rewarding shareholders and leading on the environment. Our ultimate measure of success is being a company that our customers trust, like and want to do business with and that can serve as a model for others in our industry, and beyond.
Governance
Our Values
- We act with integrity and communicate honestly and openly
- We are passionate about meeting our customers’ needs and delivering for our shareholders
- We are accountable for all of our own actions: these include safety, protecting the environment, and supporting our communities
- We work together as a team and are committed to excellence and innovation
- We respect each other and celebrate our diversity
The Compliance and Public Policy Committee of PG&E Corporation’s Board of Directors has primary oversight of corporate sustainability issues, such as environmental compliance and leadership, climate change, community investments, diversity and inclusion, and workforce development. This oversight includes an annual review of PG&E’s sustainability practices and performance. Other committees of the PG&E Corporation Board and the full PG&E Corporation and Pacific Gas and Electric Company Boards address other components of PG&E’s sustainability commitment, such as public and employee safety, investments to build a smarter grid and the pathways to increase our deliveries of clean energy.
Within management, PG&E’s Chief Sustainability Officer is responsible for spearheading PG&E’s corporate sustainability initiatives, reporting and engagement. This is done in coordination with other members of senior management responsible for functions such as supply chain management, environmental compliance and customer energy solutions.
Employee-led initiatives throughout the business are also helping to integrate corporate sustainability priorities into our work. For example, our volunteer Grassroots Green Network actively engages employees to help reduce facility energy use, water use and waste, while our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) provide an important link to diverse communities through volunteer service, mentoring and scholarship awards.
Strategy and Integration
PG&E’s sustainability commitment is well-aligned with—and mutually supported by—a number of California regulatory and public policy priorities. From support for energy efficiency and supplier diversity to a wide range of environmental measures, such as greenhouse gas reduction targets, California and its utilities work together to advance a broad sustainability agenda.
Within PG&E, we continue to strengthen our multiyear strategic planning process to drive continuous improvement across our business. We use a rigorous integrated planning process designed to identify compliance obligations and key risks; formulate clear multiyear goals and strategies; align resources; and ensure integration, consistency and continuity in our plans. The process focuses first on our risks, which leads to a long-term strategy to mitigate these risks and identify our critical objectives, and then matches our strategies with resource planning.
Understanding the needs and expectations of our stakeholders is crucial to this process. To help guide our sustainability journey and support our commitment to continuous improvement, PG&E recently established an external Sustainability Advisory Council comprised of recognized leaders across sustainability issues for our company and industry.
Our materiality assessment, published in 2014, also continues to inform our sustainability strategy and broader enterprise-wide strategic planning process.
Creating Incentives
PG&E’s Short-Term Incentive Plan (STIP) reinforces PG&E’s sustainability commitment by rewarding eligible employees for achieving specific goals that are crucial to our success. In 2014, we continued to tie compensation closely to safety with public and workforce safety measures determining 40 percent of management’s annual at-risk performance-based pay. In 2015, we increased this share to 50 percent. Safety continues to be the single largest driver for annual at-risk performance-based pay, with financial performance and customer service each representing an additional 25 percent.
| Measure | 2014 Weight | 2015 Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Safety1 | 40% | 50% |
| Customer2 | 35% | 25% |
| Financial3 | 25% | 25% |
- 1 Based on four subcomponents: nuclear operations safety, electric operations safety, gas operations safety, and employee safety.
- 2 Based on two subcomponents in 2015: customer satisfaction and average duration of electricity outages. In 2014, this category also included gas operations metrics, some of which were moved to the Safety category in 2015.
- 3 Based on PG&E Corporation’s earnings from operations.
For more details on the specific measures and targets for our 2014 and 2015 STIP, as well as our 2014 results, please see page 38 of the 2015 PG&E Corporation and Pacific Gas and Electric Company Joint Proxy Statement (PDF).
Measuring and Communicating Our Progress
Holding ourselves accountable and reporting on our performance with transparency is essential and has been a hallmark of our approach since we began producing a formal corporate environmental report in the 1990s.
In this report, we share our progress on the Key Sustainability Indicators for which we set annual targets. We also share data on our performance across a wide range of environmental, social and economic measures. By reporting on a broad set of metrics and issues, the report illuminates where we are doing well, as well as where we have opportunities to strengthen our performance.