SoCalGas Wins Reuters Events "Business Transformation" Award

Oct 31, 2022

Award recognizes leadership in sustainable business priorities

LOS ANGELES, October 31, 2022 - Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) today announced the company was recently honored with the top "Business Transformation Award" at the, 2022 Responsible Business Awards, hosted by Reuters Events. SoCalGas was among 700 global companies considered across 16 categories. The Business Transformation category recognized companies that have established truly transformative sustainability priorities. Entries were evaluated on the degree to which their transformation plans had the potential to create impact at scale in their sector and beyond.

SoCalGas was also named a finalist for the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award which recognizes efforts "that best demonstrates measurable impact in promoting progressive diversity values around investment, strategy, education or recruitment - with the goal in mind to ensure a more just and equal society." An awards ceremony was held earlier this month in London.

"SoCalGas is a leader in sustainability with innovations across our business," said SoCalGas CEO Scott Drury. "From the delivery of renewable natural gas to support clean transportation, to powering company facilities with renewable energy, to creating a Customer Council on Decarbonization to help major energy users decarbonize their operations, SoCalGas is advancing its mission to build the cleanest, safest, most innovative energy company in America. We are proud to be recognized by Reuters for making a meaningful difference in our industry, communities, and beyond."

"The judges were impressed by the bold target of eliminating 100% of vented methane gas, an underreported issue that has been ignored for too long," said Ed Long, Head of Sustainable Business Events at Reuters Events. "The measures being taken by SoCalGas upstream along with the granularity of planning was very strong, and the impact and scalability of implementing this solution have the potential to be orders of magnitude greater than the impact of other commendable initiatives."

SoCalGas is actively developing an industry-leading portfolio of scalable clean fuels demonstration projects with partners from private industry, the US Department of Energy and California Energy Commission, and leading research institutions such as the University of California, Irvine and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Clean fuels like green hydrogen could support decarbonized and reliable electric generation, clean high-heat manufacturing, and would help California reach its zero-emissions vehicle goals.

Last year, SoCalGas announced its aspiration to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in its operations and the energy it delivers by 2045 - aligning with the State of California's carbon neutrality goals - and earlier this year released its ASPIRE 2045 Sustainability Strategy to help reach that goal.

As part of its transformative efforts, SoCalGas is accelerating its work to leverage existing infrastructure to deliver carbon neutral fuels like renewable natural gas and clean hydrogen, and to permanently remove carbon emissions from the atmosphere.

Those efforts also include the company's announcement to develop Angeles Link, an energy infrastructure system under development that could deliver reliable green hydrogen at scale to the Los Angeles Basin for use in electric generation and hard-to-electrify sectors.

SoCalGas is also constructing a renewable hydrogen microgrid and home as part of its [H2] Innovation Experience. The renewable hydrogen microgrid for the [H2] Innovation Experience is a proof-of-concept project for resilient, clean energy using an electrolyzer to convert solar energy to hydrogen and a fuel cell to supply electricity to a home, neighborhood, or small business. The project was named a World-Changing Idea in North America by Fast Company.

As part of the company's sustainability efforts, SoCalGas is also making investments to advance a diverse, equitable and inclusive culture in the communities it serves, including a commitment to invest approximately $50 million over the next five years in underserved communities and purchasing 42% - nearly $1 billion - of all our goods and services from women, minority, LGBT, and persons with disabilities business enterprises in 2021.

Today, nearly all of SoCalGas' buildings are powered by renewable electricity, the company has accelerated the conversion of its fleet vehicles to zero emissions models, and it has reduced methane emissions from its system by nearly 40% since 2015, efforts that are expected to help reach California's carbon neutrality goals.

Click here to read CEO Scott Drury's own words on the Business Transformation Award.

To learn more about SoCalGas' sustainability efforts, visit https://www.socalgas.com/sustainability.

 

About SoCalGas
SoCalGas is the largest gas distribution utility in the United States, serving more than 21 million consumers across approximately 24,000 square miles of Central and Southern California. Our mission is: Safe, Reliable, and Affordable energy delivery today. Ready for tomorrow. SoCalGas is a recognized leader in the energy industry and has been named Corporate Member of the Year by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce for its volunteer leadership in the communities it serves. SoCalGas is a subsidiary of Sempra (NYSE: SRE), a leading North American energy infrastructure company. For more information, visit SoCalGas.com/newsroom or connect with SoCalGas on social media @SoCalGas.

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Factors, among others, that could cause actual results and events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statement include: decisions, denials of cost recovery, audits, investigations, inquiries, ordered studies, regulations, denials or revocations of permits, consents, approvals or other authorizations, renewals of franchises, and other actions, including the failure to honor contracts and commitments, by the (i) California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Internal Revenue Service and other regulatory bodies and (ii) U.S. and states, counties, cities and other jurisdictions therein where we do business; the success of business development efforts and construction projects, including risks related to (i) completing construction projects or other transactions on schedule and budget, (ii) realizing anticipated benefits from any of these efforts if completed, (iii) obtaining third-party consents and approvals and (iv) third parties honoring their contracts and commitments; changes to our capital expenditure plans and their potential impact on rate base or other growth; litigation, arbitration and other proceedings, and changes (i) to laws and regulations, including those related to tax, (ii) due to the results of elections, and (iii) in trade and other foreign policy, including the imposition of tariffs by the U.S. and foreign countries; cybersecurity threats, including by state and state-sponsored actors, of ransomware or other attacks on our systems or the systems of third parties with which we conduct business, including the energy grid or other energy infrastructure; the availability, uses, sufficiency, and cost of capital resources and our ability to borrow money or otherwise raise capital on favorable terms and meet our obligations, which can be affected by, among other things, (i) actions by credit rating agencies to downgrade our credit ratings or place those ratings on negative outlook, (ii) instability in the capital markets, and (iii) fluctuating interest rates and inflation; the impact on affordability of our customer rates and our cost of capital and on our ability to pass through higher costs to customers due to (i) volatility in inflation, interest rates and commodity prices and (ii) the cost of meeting the demand for lower carbon and reliable energy in California; the impact of climate policies, laws, rules, regulations, trends and required disclosures, including actions to reduce or eliminate reliance on natural gas, increased uncertainty in the political or regulatory environment for California natural gas distribution companies, the risk of nonrecovery for stranded assets, and uncertainty related to emerging technologies; weather, natural disasters, pandemics, accidents, equipment failures, explosions, terrorism, information system outages or other events, such as work stoppages, that disrupt our operations, damage our facilities or systems, cause the release of harmful materials or fires or subject us to liability for damages, fines and penalties, some of which may not be recoverable through regulatory mechanisms or insurance or may impact our ability to obtain satisfactory levels of affordable insurance; the availability of natural gas and natural gas storage capacity, including disruptions caused by failures in the pipeline and storage systems or limitations on the injection and withdrawal of natural gas from storage facilities; and other uncertainties, some of which are difficult to predict and beyond our control.

These risks and uncertainties are further discussed in the reports that the company has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). These reports are available through the EDGAR system free-of-charge on the SEC's website, www.sec.gov, and on Sempra’s website, www.sempra.com. Investors should not rely unduly on any forward-looking statements.

Sempra Infrastructure, Sempra Infrastructure Partners, Sempra Texas, Sempra Texas Utilities, Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC (Oncor) and Infraestructura Energética Nova, S.A.P.I. de C.V. (IEnova) are not the same companies as the California utilities, San Diego Gas & Electric Company or Southern California Gas Company, and Sempra Infrastructure, Sempra Infrastructure Partners, Sempra Texas, Sempra Texas Utilities, Oncor and IEnova are not regulated by the CPUC.