• What are some of your key roles and responsibilities that you have daily?
My name is Jeanne-Mey Sun, and I lead corporate sustainability for NRG. I have a diverse background spanning sustainability and the energy transition; corporate strategy; management consulting; and economic, policy, and regulatory research. At NRG I focus on our sustainability strategy, goal setting and progress, stakeholder engagement, and further embedding sustainability in the solutions we provide to our customers.
• Can you provide an overview of sustainability goals and initiatives?
NRG’s current climate goals are to reduce 50% of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions by 2025 and to achieve net-zero by 2050. These goals cover our direct emissions (Scope 1), emissions associated with the energy we purchase and consume in our operations (Scope 2), and emissions associated with employee business travel (Scope 3, category 6). While this goal is ambitious, we have successfully reduced our CO2e emissions by 42% since our 2014 base year and NRG was 28 one of the first companies to have its targets validated by the Science-Based Target initiative. We also have a goal to electrify our fleet vehicles by 2030.
• What specific measures have you taken to reduce your environmental footprint?
Our direct carbon footprint has declined due to a reduction in fleet-wide annual net electricity generation and a market driven shift away from coal as a primary fuel to natural gas. As described further in our Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) report, we are using four main levers to advance our carbon transition strategy:
• Decarbonization of existing business lines, which includes retiring fossil fuel generation assets when they reach end of life
• Diversification into low emissions businesses, which includes providing our customers with renewable electricity and options to reduce the carbon footprint associated with their natural gas consumption
• Divestment of select high emissions assets
• Deployment of new technologies and innovations
In 2022, we also reduced our sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury emissions by 63%, 40%, and 93%, respectively, since our 2014 base year and our water withdrawal volumes by 59% during that same timeframe.
Our direct carbon footprint has declined due to a reduction in
fleet-wide annual net electricity generation and a market driven shift away from coal as a primary fuel to natural gas
Beyond our own environmental footprint, we are also working to help our customers reduce their environmental footprints through their use of our products and services. For example: customized renewable electricity plans, certified carbon offsets and renewable electricity certificates, energy storage and resilience solutions, time of use plans, demand response programs, and sustainability concierge and advisory services.
• How does NRG Energy engage with stakeholders, such as local communities and environmental organizations, to ensure sustainability and address their concerns?
We engage with many types of sustainability-focused stakeholders – including customers, industry groups, academia, and government and non-government organizations – who are each working to advance some aspect of the energy transition. Our focus includes decarbonization pathways (electrification, carbon capture, use, and storage, hydrogen, and reducing the carbon footprint of the natural gas supply chain), proposed sustainability reporting rules and standards, and the climate-tech start-up ecosystem, which we believe will help us identify technologies and partners that could help both NRG and our customers decarbonize.
• Can you elaborate on the role of innovation and technology in sustainability efforts?
Innovation and technology are incredibly important in sustainability efforts, particularly to combat climate change at the necessary scale and to do so economically. We engage with a variety of stakeholders including those that are focused on developing specific decarbonization technologies like long-duration energy storage; more efficient low emission energy systems based on wind, solar, nuclear, and geothermal technologies; carbon capture, use, and storage; hydrogen; and nature based solutions. We also support the climate-tech start-up ecosystem which is working to develop new technologies or improve existing technologies such that they can be more widely deployed.
• What challenges or obstacles have encountered while implementing sustainability initiatives, and how have you addressed them?
Meeting our climate goals, while also ensuring that the energy we provide to our customers remains both reliable and affordable -- the so-called energy trilemma -- can be a challenge. We actively monitor various options to reduce the carbon intensity of our operations and the electricity we provide to our customers, but there are a variety of factors out of our control such as the power market, weather, and geo-political circumstances such as the Russia Ukraine war, which play a part in our business and can increase or decrease our emissions. Ultimately, I believe that our technology-agnostic approach to decarbonization will ensure that we have access to the lowest-cost solutions when they are economic at scale. In the near term, we remain committed to offering renewable electricity to those customers that demand it, and we are aggressively pursuing renewable power purchase agreements with third-party developers so we can bring even more renewable electricity to our customers.
