Improving Our Ways of Working
Buildings
Although closures and usage declines stemming from COVID-19 played a considerable role in reducing the total emissions from our building footprint, ENGIE North America also led several key initiatives to further strengthen our sustainable and socially responsible commitments.
After relocating our corporate headquarters at the first part of 2020 to Four Oaks Place, ENGIE North America decommissioned the bulk of the furniture used at its previous location at Post Oak Central. Decommissioning ensures environmental responsibility while supporting those in need locally. ENGIE North America partnered with Green Standards to turn 469 tons of waste into $81,586 in charitable contributions, responsibly redistributing the no-longer-needed workplace items. Other existing furniture, such as ergonomic chairs and filing cabinets, were repurposed and relocated to Four Oaks Place to be both cost-effective and sustainable.
ENGIE North America also worked closely with the property management company of Four Oaks Place, the home of its newly-leased office space, to convert the building’s energy supply to an 84-month renewable agreement. Four Oaks Place is now being powered by Live Oak – ENGIE North America’s 200 MW, 76-turbine wind farm near San Angelo, Texas – representing 5,747 annual MWh of renewable consumption.
Commuting
With the onset of COVID-19, ENGIE North America offices around the country were closed. Later in the year, as local restrictions allowed, offices began to slowly reopen on a volunteer basis. This resulted in a considerable decline in commuting emissions, moving the company from 10,821 metric tons of CO2 emissions in 2019 to 7,691 metric tons of CO2 emissions in 2020.
Although many employees continue to work in remote environments due to COVID-19, ENGIE North America is taking several steps now to support carbon-reduction efforts in a post-pandemic environment. With the introduction of a revised flexible work program, employees have the opportunity to work three days a week in the office and two days at home. This will help to further decarbonize our commuting footprint under normal operating conditions.
Fleet
ENGIE North America established benchmark data in 2019 to gain a better understanding of our fleet emissions and explore opportunities for reductions. In 2020, the divestiture of MultiTech, Ltd., a Canadian mechanical and electrical contractor, contributed to a decline in fleet vehicle emissions. This resulted in an 8.7% year-over-year reduction in Scope 1 emissions.
Business Travel
COVID-19 had a dramatic impact on emissions from business travel. Shutdowns and company restrictions moved ENGIE North America from 2,257 metric tons of CO2 emissions from business travel in 2019 to just 564 metric tons of CO2 in 2020, representing a 75% year-over-year reduction.
Digital
In 2020, ENGIE North America continued its centralized cloud computing strategy, Cloud First, by providing economies of scale with higher power usage effectiveness. Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services now provide over 50% of our computing services. Like ENGIE North America, both companies are committed to achieving carbon-neutrality in their operations, which further contributes to our emissions reduction strategy. However, the transition to working from home in light of COVID-19 brought an increased demand for data transfer, which caused emissions from cloud services to increase slightly from our 2019 performance.
In addition to these efforts, ENGIE North America completed a digital carbon footprint assessment in 2020. This includes tracking materials emissions from equipment such as laptops, smartphones, screens and printers, and measuring data transfer via emails, video conferencing and cloud storage. ENGIE North America’s total digital footprint accounted for 550 metric tons of CO2 equivalent. This includes 187 metric tons of CO2 equivalent of Scope 2 emissions, and 363 metric tons of CO2 equivalent of Scope 3 emissions.
Work from Home
The onset of COVID-19 presented ENGIE with the opportunity to introduce Work from Home as a new category of activities to measure and reduce impact. We conducted a baseline assessment of these emissions in 2020 to better understand how we could improve performance. Based on that evaluation, we determined our annual emissions from working from home was 882 metric tons of CO2 equivalent. This is an area of emissions that will naturally decline as more renewable generation is introduced to the grid.
