Entergy Corporation Releases 2020 Integrated Report

Annual report highlights the company's preparedness to deliver critical services despite unprecedented challenges

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Apr 22, 2021, 14:05 ET

NEW ORLEANS, April 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Entergy Corporation (NYSE: ETR) today announced its 2020 Integrated Report, an annual overview of the company's performance and a detailed look at its continuing actions to build the premier utility and power life for its customers and communities.

"The energy we supplied in 2020 was essential and life-sustaining," said Leo Denault, chairman and CEO of Entergy Corporation. "Our customers rely on us to energize their homes and businesses while we help power the health and well-being of our communities. Everything we set out to accomplish is firmly grounded in our commitment to deliver long-term, sustainable value to all our stakeholders. We believe that is more important now than ever."

The report, titled "Forward Together," reflects on 2020 as an extraordinary year in which Entergy's 13,400 dedicated employees delivered critical services for its customers and communities in the midst of unprecedented challenges: the COVID-19 pandemic, social and political unrest and the largest restoration workforce mobilization in the company's history during a record-breaking storm season. The report also details the company's commitment to providing reliable, affordable and increasingly clean energy, while creating a more sustainable future for Entergy's customers, employees, communities and owners.

Key indicators of our 2020 performance include:

Leading in the recovery. Our comprehensive business continuity plan allowed us to lean in and play an essential role in helping our customers and communities manage through and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Employees quickly adapted to new working arrangements, with much of our workforce telecommuting. Field employees and others, for whom telecommuting was not an option, were equipped with tools and resources to ensure their safety while keeping electric power and gas flowing for customers. We also temporarily suspended service disconnections for nearly a year and designed flexible payment plans for our customers.
Starting with the customer. Reliable power at the flip of a switch is just the beginning of our relationship with customers. We are striving to understand the outcomes that customers need in their personal lives, in their manufacturing plants and in their retail businesses. We are developing new customer solutions, including customer-sited backup generation and beneficial electrification opportunities, that match our customers' desired outcomes and make their lives better.
Leading on environmental stewardship. Entergy is actively working toward a carbon-free future. We outperformed by 8% our ten-year voluntary climate pledge to reduce carbon emissions by 20% below 2000 levels. Our utility carbon emission rate has decreased approximately 37% since 2000. We enhanced our climate action strategy in 2020 with a commitment to reducing carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050. As part of this plan, we are partnering with Mitsubishi Power to develop emerging technologies and explore the use of hydrogen as a realistic generation resource.
Investing productively. We are investing in the future for the benefit of our customers. We provided power and natural gas safely, reliably and efficiently, while also making significant investments in distribution, generation and transmission systems to improve customer outcomes and drive customer solutions. We also spent in excess of $1.1 billion in 2020 with more than 5,200 local and diverse suppliers.
Empowering our workforce. Our relentless focus on safety placed us in top-decile safety performance when benchmarked against industry peers. Despite new preventive safety measures, the pandemic's challenges did not stop our employees from raising our five-year total for volunteer service to more than 500,000 hours. We also achieved near top-quartile results in our annual organizational health index while navigating the challenges of a new remote work environment for many employees.
Including everyone. Our people and our culture are critical to our success. Building a diverse, inclusive culture where every employee belongs and contributes is imperative to building the premier utility. It's a culture that makes us more competitive and closely aligns us with the needs of the communities we serve.
Being a great community partner. Our success is inextricably tied to the success of the communities we serve. Our generous shareholders contributed nearly $19 million in philanthropic grants and community support last year, including more than $3.3 million for COVID-19 pandemic relief and $1.3 million for hurricane and disaster relief. Working with our community partners, our social initiatives delivered $115 million in benefits to our communities in 2020 and, despite the challenges imposed by the pandemic, our employees and retirees still managed to contribute more than 95,000 volunteer service hours to a variety of charitable causes.
Delivering financial results for shareholders. Our economic objective is to produce steady, predictable growth in earnings and dividends. Our strong financial results in 2020 proved our ability, in the face of adversity, to deliver on our commitments. We are well-positioned for continued value creation that benefits all our stakeholders.
Never stop improving. Our utility companies provide power to customers at some of the lowest retail rates in the country, and we're on a journey to continuously optimize our business. We successfully lowered our 2020 operations and maintenance expenses by approximately $150 million, which exceeded our $100 million cost-savings target. By working smarter and more efficiently, we invest more for our customers, resulting in even higher levels of service and reliability without significantly affecting their bills.

This is the eighth year that Entergy has published an integrated report. Entergy was the first U.S. electric utility to voluntarily combine its annual shareholder report with its sustainability report in 2013. Today, the company is one of only a few leading U.S. companies to consolidate these reports into a single integrated report that documents the company's advancements in energy and innovation, sustainability and environmental stewardship, and social responsibility and community investments. This report also details how Entergy's strategies are aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which were adopted in 2015 as a blueprint to achieving a better and more sustainable future for all.

View the 2020 Integrated Report and learn how Entergy powers life for all its stakeholders at integratedreport.entergy.com.

About Entergy Corporation

Entergy Corporation is an integrated energy company engaged in electric power production, transmission and retail distribution operations. Entergy delivers electricity to 3 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy owns and operates one of the cleanest large-scale U.S. power generating fleets with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, including 8,000 megawatts of nuclear power. Headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, Entergy has annual revenues of $10 billion and more than 13,000 employees. Learn more at entergy.com and follow @Entergy on social media.

Forward-Looking Information

Entergy's statements concerning its environmental plans, goals, beliefs and expectations, including statements regarding its greenhouse gas reduction goals, and other statements of Entergy's plans, beliefs, or expectations included in this presentation are "forward-looking statements" which apply only as of the dates indicated. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements, including, among other things, uncertainties associated with regulatory proceedings and other cost recovery mechanisms, operation and relicensing of nuclear facilities, major storms and other catastrophic events, risks associated with executing on our business strategies, effects of changes in laws, regulations or policies, the effects of technological change, including the costs, pace of development and commercialization of new and emerging technologies, uncertainties and other factors discussed in Entergy's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent reports and filings made under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

SOURCE Entergy Corporation