CCS’s Principal has more than 20-years’ experience leading sustainability and climate change strategies, achieving performance outcomes recognized by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for 16 consecutive years and producing comprehensive, enterprise-wide, sustainability reports that conform to leading standards and guidelines, including the Global Reporting Initiative and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. More recently his focus has included addressing investor ESG issues and advising the Board of the largest U.S. electric utility.
STRATEGY:
Building the Strategy – Developing a credible and relevant sustainability strategy begins with the fundamentals of identifying the business impacts, risks, and relevant stakeholders across the value chain, and establishing governance and management systems for evolving the strategy and driving performance that links to value. Following the creation of Exelon in 2000, CCS’s Principle developed the first comprehensive corporate environmental strategy for the Corporation’s CEO in 2001, to establish a credible environmental profile to support the newly formed company’s advocacy efforts focused on enacting a national carbon policy. The identification of the key environmental sustainability issues was based on benchmarking analysis of relevant issues for the industry and best practices for addressing them, and an internal analysis of the company’s significant environmental aspects and impacts. Based on an analysis of the issues which were most relevant and impactful, a set of material issues was defined and for each a strategic response with performance metrics was established. The overall strategy included many of the accomplishments and plans of the operating companies, and the value added was integrating the individual activities into a corporate level strategy that reflected a more aligned and coordinated strategic approach. The strategy was initially implemented through several key initiatives, including establishment of a corporate-wide, ISO 14001 certified, environmental management system, setting and ultimately achieving a GHG emissions reduction goal under the U.S. EPA Climate Leaders Program.
Evolving the Strategy – Over the next two-decades CCS’s Principal continued to lead specific performance outcomes across the enterprise, engage stakeholders, assess emerging issues, and refine the strategy, in collaboration with the operating businesses. Recommendations for addressing new priorities, such as supply chain, water resources, Scope 3 emissions, human rights and more recently social equity and environmental justice, were presented to senior leadership and the Board. With their sponsorship, plans for realizing the recommended goals and outcomes were implemented through the businesses. The process for engaging stakeholders, conducting research, and assessing potential key sustainability issues was supported by having established a defined governance model and management systems, including active engagement by senior leadership and with the Board. The overarching sustained outcome has been that Exelon has been able to position itself as a corporate leader for the environment, climate change and more broadly sustainability for nearly two-decades. More recently the company’s strategy and management of ESG issues has been lauded by its largest investors and has been recognized as effectively addressing ESG issues by the DJSI, CDP, ISS, and others.
Integration with Business Strategy – Sustainability is addressed most effectively when it is integral with the overall business strategy and when it evolves with changes in the business and stakeholder expectations. As the company’s business strategy evolved, sustainability became a more significant aspect for value creation opportunities and identifying value at risk. CSS’s Principal led the development of the strategic sustainability and climate assessments for the business to extract the full value of the sustainability and climate benefits, while understanding the associated risks with potentially new issues. Significant insights were gained from conducting a U.S. national scale scenario analysis of the solution vectors for limiting global warning to 2C and 1.5C, which informed the company’s strategy for setting new net-zero goals. Understanding the trade-offs between GHG emissions, land use, infrastructure requirements, impacts on the economy and customer benefits/costs, for new nuclear power, and evaluating opportunities for renewable natural gas supplies were some of the areas of this work.
GOVERNANCE:
Governance – Developed and implemented effective governance policies and enterprise level forums for addressing environmental performance and sustainability strategies, with the engagement of senior leadership, and established management systems to support the execution and evolution of the corporate sustainability strategy in response to dynamic expectations and business conditions. Collaborated with the Corporate Secretary to establish the Board Governance Committee role for environment, climate change and sustainability. Established and implemented policies for the environment, climate change, water resources, biodiversity, waste, and other key aspects. As new key issues emerged, such as human rights and environmental justice, he led the development of new policies to address emerging issues. Supply chain sustainability was addressed through the formation of the Electric Utility Sustainable Supply Chain Alliance in 2008, with CCS’s Principal directly supporting the Chief Procurement Officer as a founding member. A decade later when the TCFD recommended a framework for responding to climate change by addressing governance, strategy, risk management and metrics & targets he served as the lead executive for evolving the corporate strategy and reporting to better align with the TCFD framework and deliver valuable insights through climate change scenario analysis. Effective governance created appropriate levels of engagement and accountability throughout the organization, enabling it to focus on the fundamentals of compliance and risk management, while also addressing emerging issues and building a reputation as an environmental leader. Establishing a working relationship with senior leadership and the Board was key for advancing the evolving strategic recommendations. Most recently, in response to investor ESG expectations, ensuring effective ESG management systems has been a main area of focus, particularly as the company prepares to split into two publicly traded entities.
Management Systems – CCS’s Principal led the establishment of the ISO 14001 conformant environmental management system (EMS) throughout Exelon in the early 2000’s and ultimately two-thirds of the operating companies achieved independent ISO certification. Establishing an effective EMS was key for maintaining a focus on compliance, risk management, stewardship and capitalizing on opportunities to create value from environmental performance.
Leadership and Board Engagement – CCS’s Principal met regularly with the company’s senior leadership and the Board, to update them on emerging sustainability and ESG issues and the progress being made to address such areas across the enterprise. As part of the Exelon utilities and generation businesses restructuring, he advised senior leaders on how to refine the sustainability strategy for the respective relevant issues and establish effective governance and ESG management systems, commensurate with the respective business strategies and stakeholders.
STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT:
Investors – In response to growing investor interests over the past five-years, annually led individual investor meetings on sustainability, climate change and ESG with Exelon’s top investors, to understand their perspectives and expectations on a wide-range of issues and to communicate Exelon’s strategy, performance, and perspective on emerging issues. Provided direct support to Board members in preparation for proxy advisory firm meetings.
Customers – Supported Constellation (an Exelon company) sales and marketing to meet growing customer interest in using their energy supply to advance their sustainability priorities. Customer engagement ranged from individual customer meetings to annual roundtables, with the largest customers, to inform, explore and develop strategies for using energy products and services to help them achieve their goals. For some customers this meant creating a foundational sustainability strategy and for others it was focused on accessing and using specific clean energy products such as renewable electricity, renewable natural gas, and Exelon’s nuclear-based EFEC product.
Employees – Led engagement initiatives with employees across the enterprise including advising Human Resources on the biennial Employee Engagement Survey environmental and safety questions; supporting the Employee Resource Groups for the Environment; serving as executive sponsor for the annual Safety and Environmental Awards and the annual Exelon Environmental Forum.
NGOs – Served as executive relationship lead for several strategic NGO relationships, including Ceres, World Resources Institute, Wildlife Habitat Council and others. Collaborated with external parties to find common interests and pursue joint initiatives. Highlights include the annual Exelon Ceres-facilitated stakeholder review, which has been conducted for 14 consecutive years.
Government – Supported Exelon government affairs with assessments of the implications of climate policy proposals and positioning Exelon effectively with legislators and regulators on advocacy issues. Participated in environmental, climate change and sustainability testimony for merger regulatory approvals in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia, responding to hundreds of related questions, that resulted in approval for the mergers.
Corporate Sustainability Reporting and Web Presence – Lead executive/director for the development and publication of the Exelon Annual Sustainability Report for the past ten-years. Collaborated on the development of the content, editorial review with senior executives and using the report to engage stakeholders.