Operational Excellence
Supply Chain
Achieving our strategic priorities associated with safety, operational excellence, environmental stewardship, social responsibility, and cost savings is the mission of our Supply Chain organization. In 2020, we continued to leverage our procurement activities to make positive environmental impacts and contributions within the communities we serve.
Supply Chain is also helping our company respond to customer expectations for a clean, smart, and reliable energy grid. Investments in this area include the execution of $22 million in battery storage contracts, $20 million in energy efficiency and demand management contracts, $5 million in smart meter AMI contracts, and $4 million in electric vehicle infrastructure contracts. In addition, we added 46 electric vehicles to support the transition of our own fleet of gasoline-powered light duty vehicles to electric vehicles. Our purchase of environmentally friendly products, such as hybrid vehicles, low-carbon fuels, recycled paper, and recycled carpet, exceeded $5 million.
Last year we recruited 25 of our vendors to complete sustainability assessments and to develop measurable plans to improve their environmental performance related to factors such as water and energy use, waste production, and greenhouse gas emissions. We are also initiating a new process to negotiate and monitor sustainability-related commitments made by vendors on targeted contracts.
Our Supply Chain sustainability initiatives also help to support our commitments for creating jobs within the communities we serve. In 2020, we purchased $322 million from women-owned and minority-owned businesses and our expenditures with small businesses exceeded $500 million.
Our Green Energy Opportunities Program is a great example of the contributions we are making within our service territory. Through this initiative we are leveraging energy efficiency projects that are subsidized by Con Edison to create contract opportunities for Minority and Women Owned Business Enterprises (MWBE) subcontractors and jobs for low-income New York City housing residents. This program is a partnership between our Energy Efficiency Program, Supply Chain, the energy efficiency services company Willdan Energy, and the non-profit organization Green City Force. Last year this program yielded $6 million in contract opportunities for MWBE subcontractors. It also provided job training related to electrical mechanical building systems, including lighting, HVAC, and refrigeration for 120 low-income New Yorkers, and employment for 70 community residents. Projects completed through this program helped Con Edison achieve its goals related to reducing energy use and associated costs for customers.
In addition to contributing to our sustainability efforts, our diverse vendors also supported our response to the COVID-19 pandemic. MWBEs were able to support critical Supply Chain needs in creative ways. These diverse firms were able to provide Con Edison with over $4 million worth of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as hand sanitizer and masks at a time in which these items were in short supply.
MWBEs also helped our company to create safe workspaces by retrofitting existing furniture with partitions. This effort will avoid the purchase of new furniture and thereby reduce costs and waste sent to landfills. This initiative is also an expansion of a partnership we have with a woman-owned business that is helping us to create a “closed loop” model in which we are repurposing used furniture that previously would have been sent to landfills and delivering impressive results. By leveraging this relationship, materials from our used furniture are utilized in a process to make remanufactured office furniture that we buy back at a 40% savings. This pilot program has helped us to avoid waste disposal costs by diverting over 250,000 pounds of waste from landfills, saving energy and reducing CO2 emissions.
The positive contributions made in the communities we serve was recognized with a Supplier Diversity award from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities Supplier Diversity Development Council.