Operational Excellence

Supply Chain

Supply Chain contributes significantly to our company’s sustainability by enhancing safety, purchasing environmentally friendly products, diverting waste from landfills, and supporting small businesses and minority- and women-owned businesses.

In support of our company’s commitment to lower greenhouse emissions, Supply Chain awarded more than $154 million in contracts to help customers convert from oil to cleaner natural gas. In 2016, we initiated a Gold Shovel Program—a safety training and certification program for all our construction vendors involved in digging up streets and doing gas construction work, demonstrating our commitment to safe excavation practices.

Among our other accomplishments in 2016:

• We purchased more than $8 million of environmentally friendly products—hybrid vehicles, low-carbon fuels, recycled paper, toner, and carpet
• We diverted more than $9.5 million of waste from landfills by focusing on items such as scrap cable, meters, transformers, and paper
• We reclaimed over 200,000 gallons of oil from the electric system for reuse as a fuel in other industries
• We recruited a minority-owned business that collaborated with our R&D team and operations group to develop technology that identifies the release of dielectric fluid in manholes throughout our network. This technology lessens the need to open manholes on busy streets, improves response time, and reduces the need for flush trucks
• We awarded a $150 million contract for newly designed large power transformers that are energy efficient and safer (because they run cooler). They also use cleaner-burning biodegradable ester oil, which reduces our greenhouse gas emissions
• We continued our collaboration with a major electrical equipment supplier in a process that has yielded more than 750,000 pounds of reclaimed copper
• We purchased $292 million in goods and services from women- and minority-owned companies. Including purchases from non-diverse small businesses, we surpassed the $500 million mark for the first time—an important milestone because small businesses are a major source for creating jobs within our service area

As members of the Electric Utility Sustainable Supply Chain Industry Alliance, we work with the nation’s largest energy companies to establish industry standards and guidance for vendors. We helped to develop smart-packaging guidelines that help our vendors create more efficient ways to package and ship products, resulting in cost savings and less harm to the environment.

We regularly review, and enhance as needed, our Supplier Code of Conduct to ensure that it addresses important sustainability issues, which may include but not be limited to human rights, environmental management, responsible procurement and supplier diversity.