SDG&E NAMED NATIONAL CLIMATE LEADER FOR SECOND CONSECUTIVE YEAR

March 4, 2013 (San Diego)– San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) has received the national Supply Chain Leadership Award at the second annual Climate Leadership Awards in Washington, D.C. The Climate Leadership Awards recognize organizations that go beyond business as usual in the management and reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and are presented by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Association of Climate Change Officers (ACCO), the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) and The Climate Registry (TCR).

The Supply Chain Leadership Award is being presented to SDG&E for being a leader with comprehensive GHG inventories, aggressive emissions reduction goals and leading edge management of GHGs in their supply chains.

“At SDG&E, environmental stewardship is a corporate value and an important part of our culture,” said Pamela J. Fair, SDG&E vice president, environmental and operations support and chief environmental officer. “We have a holistic and comprehensive view on sustainability and proactively look at incorporating sustainable best practices in everything we do.”

SDG&E received the award February 28 at the Climate Leadership Conference held in Washington D.C. The national awards program recognizes and encourages exemplary corporate, organizational, and individual leadership in reducing carbon pollution and addressing climate change.  Last year, SDG&E was awarded the Organizational Leadership Award for taking aggressive actions to reduce their carbon footprint.

“I commend SDG&E for leading by example with their outstanding actions to help reduce carbon pollution,” said Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. "SDG&E and all our Climate Leadership Award winners are tackling the challenge of climate change with practical, common sense and cost-effective solutions to improve efficiency and cut waste.”

Over the past year, SDG&E collaborated with key suppliers to develop innovative programs to reduce the company’s environmental impact such as:

• Designed more efficient, lower-carbon ways to build concrete vaults

• Installed more environmentally friendly utility poles

• Right-sized the lengths of electrical cable to reduce waste

• Recycled assets taken out of service and diverted 16 million pounds of materials from landfills

• Sourced certified “green” chemicals for janitorial services

• Increased use of recycled, rather than non-recycled, paper for required business needs and minimized paper usage with double-sided printing

• Launched a pilot Supplier Relationship Management program to track sustainability metrics with four key suppliers

“We are ‘greening’ our entire value chain – beginning with our suppliers – by challenging them to provide us with more sustainable solutions and greener products,” said Fair.  “We challenge ourselves and our employees to continuously pursue more sustainable ways to operate our business and to provide service to our customers.  Finally, we work every day with all our customers to offer programs and information to help them save energy.”