Elevating Community &
Stakeholder Engagement

Con Edison has been interwoven into New York’s communities for 200 years. We are always looking for new and better ways to engage with our stakeholders. Such engagement becomes all the more important during the clean energy transition, which will touch the lives of all New Yorkers. The simple fact is we will need the support of all our stakeholders to achieve New York’s goal of 100 percent clean energy by 2040. We believe this transition will bring huge benefits and opportunities to the communities we serve, and we are constantly on the lookout for ways to maximize those local benefits.

Stakeholder Engagement & Collaboration

Much of the work we do is highly visible: our crews are on – and under – New York’s streets every day. That work is made possible in part by our close working relationships with community groups, chambers of commerce, and local development corporations. Through these relationships we are better able to coordinate our projects and capital investments, inform our customers of the benefits of technologies such as smart meters and energy efficiency upgrades, and offer local businesses opportunities for doing business with Con Edison and taking advantage of the clean energy transition.

Additionally, we cultivate relationships with environmental advocacy and justice groups, consumer advocates, and groups representing large customers, giving us an opportunity to listen to their priorities and address their concerns. Our stakeholder relationships become especially critical during emergencies and outages. We seek to further strengthen our relationships with our communities and stakeholders as New York’s clean energy transition gathers speed.

Policy & Regulatory Impact

Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. (CECONY) and Orange & Rockland Utilities, Inc. (O&R) support New York State’s clean energy policies and goals, including plans outlined under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) to reduce statewide GHG emissions 85% from 1990 levels by 2050 and provide customers with 100% of their energy from emission free resources by 2040.

Stakeholder engagement and collaboration are a key part of our policy and regulatory work. We work in partnership with our customers, policymakers, various third parties, and other energy companies to seek innovative ways to realize the clean energy future. This includes exploring new ways to advance clean energy technologies through adoption of distributed resources, including energy storage and solar connected to the distribution system. CECONY and O&R have programs to reduce fossil fuel usage, providing incentives for customers to install electric-powered heat pumps and electric vehicle chargers. We are also advocating at the New York State-level for the ability to own large-scale renewable generation. All of this is in addition to installing smart meters throughout our service areas and piloting new rate designs, will help customers manage their energy usage and bills.

We are an active participant in regulatory proceedings, including those that seek to expand energy efficiency, develop offshore wind, establish transmission policy to advance clean energy objectives, provide customers with high efficiency electric heating options, amend regulatory structures to achieve CLCPA targets, enhance system resiliency considering climate change, and grow the electric vehicles sector by building needed electric vehicle charging infrastructure. We work with regulators, customers, and other stakeholders to develop solutions that will promote a clean energy future in a cost-effective way for all New Yorkers. We also regularly engage with key stakeholders on various regulatory and clean energy topics to keep an open dialogue. Additionally, we advocate for many of these policies through the legislative process at all levels of government.

Community Development & Strategic Partnerships

Con Edison thrives when New York and its communities thrive. We see our support and investments in the community as not only the right thing to do, but as critical to our own long-term success as a company. In 2022, Con Edison provided $12.6 million to more than 600 nonprofit organizations, covering the environment, STEM education, community partnerships, civics, and the arts. A large chunk of our giving is dedicated to groups focused on environmental stewardship and the clean energy transition. Here, we highlight a few of the many organizations we support:

New York Aquarium’s Sea Change Exhibit

Con Edison has partnered with the Wildlife Conservation Society/New York Zoological Society for over 30 years, helping them achieve their mission of conservation throughout our service territory. Our foundational support for the new Sea Change exhibit at the New York Aquarium provides an up-close, underwater view of marine mammals and birds, and raises awareness of climate change by introducing visitors to the threats these animals face as their natural environments are transformed. Sea Change is one of the only permanent exhibits in New York City focusing on the climate change crisis, its impact on wildlife, and actions we can take to mitigate those impacts.

BioBus’ Science Gardens

Since 2016, the company’s support for Bio Bus’s Science Gardens program has helped them strengthen the connections between students, their community, and their environment. They engaging youth in hands-on learning about the importance of green spaces and the ways they can leverage scientific knowledge and inquiry in service of environmental justice problems within their own communities. These programs are brought to the students through the mobile learning lab and serves over 3,000 youth.

Westchester Land Trust’s Pollinator Pop-Up

Con Edison has been the lead funder of Westchester Land Trust’s Pollinator Pop-Up program since its inception in 2019. It is an interactive, educational, traveling exhibit that allows their educators the ability to engage community members. The program raises awareness for the permanent protection of pollinators, natural resources, and inherently inspires communities to do what they can to support and promote conservation where they live by understanding that they are part of the solution. The Westchester Land Trust has worked for over three decades with public and private partners to preserve land in perpetuity, and protect and enhance the natural resources in Westchester County.

W!se’s Sustainability Education

Working in Support of Education (W!se) improves economic mobility of youth and at-risk adults through award-winning programs that develop college and career readiness. Since 2015, Con Edison has provided support for W!se’s Engineered Green Economics (EGE) Initiative, which prepares high school students to meet complex environmental and social challenges through sustainability education. In four schools throughout New York City, volunteer experts in the field of sustainability lead the classroom in discussions on their designated topics. Students learn about climate change, resource efficiency, clean energy, green careers and new technologies to address environmental, social and business challenges.

City Growers’ Urban Agriculture Program

City Growers utilizes Brooklyn Granges rooftop farms to teach urban youth to see New York City as a thriving ecosystem, and give them the tools to sustain that ecosystem. For over a decade, Con Edison’s funding has allowed under-resourced youth from title 1 schools to learn ways to help pollinators and grow healthy food and native plants. Our partnership provides both the physical and educational tools to inspire young people to bring nature to their homes and neighborhoods, and expand pollinator pathways.

Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development’s Energy Efficiency Training

Con Edison has provided funding for the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development’s (ANHD) Affordable Housing Institute over the last decade. ANHD aims to build community power to win affordable housing and thriving, equitable neighborhoods throughout New York City, and serves 450,000 low- and middle-income New Yorkers annually. The Institute provides sustainability programming and offers targeted training and technical assistance on energy efficiency incentives to nonprofit developer members. We also partnered with ANHD to support multi-family affordable housing developers to navigate and access financial incentives for energy efficiency upgrades in multifamily buildings, helping to make affordable housing more sustainable and energy efficient.

Cooper Union’s Retraining Program for Immigrant Engineers

Con Edison supports workforce development programs that create a pipeline of technical careers to address our clean energy future. Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is a college in New York City that aims to inspire inventive, creative, and influential voices in architecture, art, and engineering to address critical challenges and opportunities. Con Edison has funded Cooper Union’s Retraining Program for Immigrant Engineers (RPIE) since 2017. RPIE is a free adult engineering education program that supports economically disadvantaged New York City immigrant, refugee, and asylee engineers. Participants are highly educated and trained in engineering and related technical fields but face barriers beyond culture and language that often prevent them from gaining professional U.S. employment. RPIE offers these engineers the opportunity to increase their technical knowledge, keep up with the latest engineering trends, and build a competitive portfolio to equip them for the professional U.S. workforce and the career they want.

Pony Power’s Composting System

Orange & Rockland Utilities is a proud supporter of Pony Power Therapies’ O2 Compost System. Pony Power Therapies is a non-profit organization that uses horses and an accessible farm to enhance the physical, social and emotional well-being of children and adults who need extra support. Their thirteen-acre, universally-designed farm homes 22 horses, a plethora of small livestock animals, including three bee hives, and a sustainably built educational and food production garden. Their O2 Compost System actively composts the farm’s animal waste utilizing a row compost system. The nutrients from this compost system is used as the base of their plant beds and goes back into the community as they donate produce to local food security organizations.

Community Involvement

CECONY has a team of Regional & Community Affairs (RCA) staff dedicated to each of the five NYC boroughs and Westchester Country. These professionals have close working relationships with the company’s government partners and long-standing, productive relationships with community stakeholders.

Our RCA team is committed to:

• Attending monthly meetings with of all NYC community boards
• Attending at least annual meetings with Westchester municipalities
• Meeting with all newly elected officials throughout CECONY service territories
• Ensuring project-based coordination and communication throughout the year

The RCA staff meet regularly with each of the NYC’s 59 community boards. These community boards represent their communities on quality-of-life issues. RCA consults extensively with the community boards on proposed and ongoing projects in the communities at the monthly District Service Cabinet meetings and other community board meetings that are open to the public. Westchester RCA also meets regularly with its municipal partners on the same matters. Each region maintains an extensive portfolio of non-profit partners. For example, Bronx RCA partners with 80 organizations, which they support with a budget of $750,000.

CECONY subject matter experts (SMEs) working within the CECONY’s operating groups are involved in RCA’s outreach process with local communities regarding all projects affecting the respective regions. Several notable projects currently underway are our Reliable Clean City project and the construction of the Brooklyn Clean Energy Hub. The SMEs engage with the communities to advise about the importance of the work we are doing to reinforce, or make more resilient, the energy systems that serve our customers in their areas. They can advise on more technical matters to the extent the communities want that information, e.g., impact on traffic, or environmental (air, water, soil) quality.

RCA logs, tracks, and reports on community-related outreach activity through our customer relationship management (CRM) platform. The metrics generated demonstrate our high level of interaction with external community stakeholders and our excellent level of responsiveness. CECONY policy requires that RCA update the contact information for all elected officials as well as government and community stakeholders in the service territories twice annually to ensure all contacts are identified and maintained.

It is the responsibility of our Corporate Affairs senior executives to coordinate regularly with government officials at all levels of government, including the NYC Mayor, NYC City Hall staff, Westchester County executive and county government, high-level government agencies and key elected officials.

Regional & Community Affairs Governance

Several policies govern RCA community engagement and outreach. These include our Corporate Affairs Crisis Communications Plan and our Guidelines for Communications with the Public During Load Management Power Outages. These policies state that our RCA team will reach out to elected officials and other community stakeholders whenever electric outage thresholds are met within certain timeframes. The company’s Electric Emergency Response Plan and the accompanying Estimated Time of Restoration Protocol also dictate that Government Relations and Regional & Community Affairs must contact stakeholders as outage thresholds are reached. In particular, these policies state that RCA must specifically schedule operator-assisted calls with stakeholders once thresholds are met.

Similarly, the Gas Emergency Response Plan references the Corporate Affairs Crisis Communications Plan and its outreach provisions. It is company policy that Corporate Affairs is responsible for releasing statements regarding gas-related emergencies to the news agencies and alerting municipal authorities of the emergency’s status.

Government Approvals

When the Company seeks to renew NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) permits such as those used by waterfront steam plants, State DEC Commissioner Policy 29 dictates that the company develop a public participation plan if using the permit would impact environmental justice areas. DEC requires, among other outreach, public meetings, email, and other alerts to local stakeholders, as well as the creation of public-facing websites and local repositories for project-based information.

Similarly, as part of the company’s Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) program, we work closely with DEC and the NYS Department of Health to test and, where appropriate, remediate, MGP sites located on current or former Con Edison properties. As part of these ongoing MGP obligations, the company must develop a Citizen Participation Plan (CPP) for each MGP site. These CPPs require that we keep impacted community stakeholders informed about the company’s environmental evaluation and response program for these sites throughout the investigative and remediation processes. The stakeholders include all elected officials, NYC community boards, nearby property owners and tenants, and other civic and community representatives. We endeavor to address and resolve concerns raised by affected local stakeholders and hold public meetings. The company has a dedicated webpage that posts pertinent information on MGP site developments and a toll-free number (877-602-6633).

Community Outreach and Environmental Justice

Some of RCA’s priorities into the future are outlined in Con Edison’s Clean Energy Commitment (CEC), which states the company’s commitment to, “enhance our collaboration with our customers and stakeholders to improve the quality of life of the neighborhoods we serve and live in, focusing on disadvantaged communities.” The CEC sets forth several initiatives, including the following:

• Advocate for cost effectiveness and partner with […] governmental partners, and other stakeholders to prioritize affordability for [low- and moderate-income] customers throughout the transition to a clean energy future
• Continue to engage environmental justice advocates to build bridges within disadvantaged communities and enhance our efforts to provide equitable distribution of benefits when designing programs and implementing projects
• Collaborate with interested stakeholders, including local municipalities and the real estate community, to identify key changes needed to foster a more “electrification ready” environment

As detailed in our Human Rights Statement, “Con Edison seeks to engage a broad range of perspectives and voices to help us to better understand the needs and expectations of our stakeholders. Through collaboration, we strive to deliver better outcomes that strengthen our community engagement while also building trust with the communities in which we serve.”

Supporting Customers

In 2022 CECONY and O&R continued providing energy bill payment assistance programs to vulnerable and low-income customers. The following are key assistance programs provided in 2022:

Energy Affordability Program

CECONY’s Energy Affordability Program (EAP) provides monthly electric and gas bill discounts to low-income customers. To maximize its reach, the Company partners with social service agencies in New York City and Westchester County to enroll customers receiving benefits from 14 different public assistance programs. In addition, CECONY executes various communication campaigns to prompt eligible customers to enroll in the EAP. At the end of 2022 there were 470,363 customers across the Company’s service territory in the EAP – approximately 15% of residential customers – which represents a 9% increase from the end of 2021. Over the course of 2022 the EAP provided $172.3 million in bill discounts to help make bills more affordable for our most vulnerable customers, representing a 33% increase over discount spending in 2021.

O&R’s Energy Affordability Program also provides monthly electric and gas bill discount to low-income customers. At the end of 2022 there were 15,027 customers across O&R’s service territory in the EAP – approximately 7% of residential customers – which represents an 8.4% increase from the end of 2021. Over the course of 2022 the EAP provided $15.7 million in bill discounts to help make bills more affordable for O&R’s most vulnerable customers, representing a 7.1% increase over discount spending in 2021.

Electric and Gas Bill Relief Program

CECONY and O&R partnered with the New York State Department of Public Service, other utilities and stakeholders from across New York State to implement an Electric and Gas Bill Relief Program (EGBRP) in 2022 that provided low-income customers with one-time bill credits to cover arrears accumulated during the COVID-19 pandemic. In total 180,302 CECONY customers received $292.2 million in bill credits through the EGBRP in 2022, and 2,410 O&R customers received $4.9 million in bill credits through the EGBRP in 2022.

Payment Assistance Options

Throughout 2022 CECONY and O&R conducted customer outreach and education campaigns to encourage customers having trouble paying energy bills to consider a deferred payment agreement to pay off past due balances over time with no interest or fees and improving budgeting of energy costs through enrollment in the level payment program. At the end of 2022, 131,000 CECONY customers were participating in a deferred payment agreement, representing a 31% increase over the end of 2021 and 8,515 O&R customers representing a 46% increase over the end of 2021.

EnergyShare

Through its EnergyShare program CECONY provides up to an additional $200 benefit to low-income customers who have made at least one payment in the previous 12 months and are income-qualified. EnergyShare bill credits are made possible by voluntary monetary contributions from CECONY employees and customers. The program typically opens in January each year and remains through the winter months, however, since March of 2020 the program has remained open year-round in effort to further assist customers through the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and increase in energy supply costs in 2022, 805 customers received assistance from the energy share program, for a total amount of assistance of $160,960.

Energy Efficiency Programs

In recent years the state of New York, CECONY, O&R and other utilities have collaborated to create a low-and moderate-income (LMI) portfolio of energy efficiency programs to improve engagement and deliver energy efficiency and associated bill savings to LMI customers and communities. As part of this statewide effort, CECONY and O&R’s program offerings in 2022 consisted of:

1. CECONY and O&R provided incentives for energy efficiency upgrades in existing multifamily buildings ranging from whole building retrofits to single measure upgrades
2. CECONY and O&R furnished customer referrals and outreach support for energy efficiency upgrades in existing 1-4 family homes through the New York State Energy Research and Development Administration’s EmPower Program
3. CECONY offered energy efficiency “Starter Kits” to customers receiving bill payment assistance through the Energy Affordability Program
4. CECONY and O&R delivered LED lightbulbs to food banks for distribution to customers
5. CECONY distributed supplemental energy efficiency and education materials to school-age children through the “Smart Kids” program
6. O&R Enhanced the MyORUStore online marketplace with additional discounts for LMI customers on air purifiers, dehumidifiers, smart thermostats, and various other products.

Shareholders

We are the longest continuously listed company on the New York Stock Exchange and have increased dividends to shareholders for 49 consecutive years with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.72 percent. In January 2023, the Board declared a quarterly dividend of 81 cents a share on its common stock, or $3.24 per share on an annualized basis — an increase of 8 cents over the previous annualized dividend of $3.16 a share.

For more information, refer to our Shareholder Services page.

Con Edison, Inc. has increased its annual dividend through 6 U.S. recessions

Stockholder Engagement

Overview

Recognizing that regular communication with our stockholders enables Consolidated Edison, Inc. (“the Company”) to better understand their viewpoints and to obtain feedback regarding issues that are of interest to them, the Company continued to engage in a hybrid format with stockholders. The Company values stockholder input and is committed to taking such input into consideration in making executive compensation and governance decisions.

The chart below represents certain actions that the Company takes before, during and after the annual meeting.

2021 Stockholder Engagement Highlights

• In 2022, the Company held its third annual ESG webinar, participated in nearly 600 meetings, including investor conferences and virtual roadshows targeting the U.S., Europe, Canada, and Australia, with a broad range of stockholders, including index funds, union and public pension funds, actively-managed funds, ESG-focused funds, and stockholder advisory firms.
• During 2022, the Company engaged virtually with stockholders holding in aggregate 45% of shares outstanding.
• Key topics of shareholder engagement included Con Edison of New York’s and Orange and Rockland’s Rate Filings, the Clean Energy Businesses strategic review and outcome, Con Edison of New York’s Climate Change Adaptation and Resiliency Plan, the Company’s corporate strategy, the Company’s pursuit of net-zero-carbon-emission goals, diversity, equity, and inclusion, disclosure practices (including ESG standardized reporting), corporate governance, political spending and lobbying practices, and operations and financial matters (including issues raised by COVID-19).

In response to stockholder feedback received during 2021, the Company:

• Continued to enhance disclosures concerning political lobbying activities, resulting in a sustained CPA-Zicklin Index for Corporate Political Disclosure and Accountability score of 100 – one of only six Company’s in the S&P 500 and Russell 1000 to score 100%
• Developed and issued a Human Rights Statement highlighting the Company’s commitment to human rights;
• Ranked 1st in the Utility sector and 15th overall in As You Sow’s 2022 Racial Justice Russell 1000 Scorecard;
• Further refined the disclosures in its proxy to, among other things, provide clearer and more accessible information on cybersecurity risk oversight

Throughout the year, the Company communicates stockholder feedback to the Board and its committees, and the Board considers this feedback in making its decisions.

Volunteerism

While our primary job is to keep energy flowing to our customers, safely, reliably and in a way that supports New York’s climate goals, our company and employees do much more than that for the community – on and off the clock. In 2022, more than 300 Con Edison employees donated 2,500 hours of their personal time supporting company-sponsored community events and programs in our service territory.

Employee volunteerism is another layer to Con Edison’s long record of environmental stewardship. This past year, we worked with three nonprofit partners on Governor’s Island to support biodiversity: the Billion Oyster Project, the Bee Conservancy, and Friends of Governor Island. Our employee-volunteers built oyster gabions for the Hudson River, worked in pollinator gardens, and helped remove invasive species from walkways.

Con Edison supports hundreds of nonprofit organizations dedicated to the environment, STEM education and the arts, through financial assistance, in-kind contributions and service on boards. We encourage our employees to give back to their communities, with a focus on environmental equity and disadvantaged communities.