San Diego Gas & Electric Named National Climate Leader For Second Consecutive Year

Utility Recognized for Sustainable Business Practices, "Greening" the Supply Chain

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Feb 28, 2013, 01:00 ET

SAN DIEGO, Feb. 28, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) will be nationally recognized tonight with the 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 is receiving the award tonight 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."

SDG&E continues to focus on achieving aggressive targets for renewable energy procurement, delivering innovative energy efficiency customer programs, and encouraging the use of alternate fueled vehicles, among other initiatives.

SDG&E is a regulated public utility that provides safe and reliable energy service to 3.4 million consumers through 1.4 million electric meters and more than 860,000 natural gas meters in San Diego and southern Orange counties. The utility's area spans 4,100 square miles. SDG&E is committed to creating ways to help customers save energy and money every day. SDG&E is a subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE), a Fortune 500 energy services holding company based in San Diego.

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SOURCE San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E)