Our commitment to the environment extends beyond operating in compliance with applicable laws, regulations and requirements. We strive to not only act responsibly but also to serve in a leadership capacity in addressing the environmental challenges that impact our company and our stakeholders.
Review the policy that guides our environmental concerns.
This effort and its goals are guided by the Exelon Environment Policy, which contains a core set of principles that inform our decision-making.
Examine our efforts to reduce our carbon footprint.
Climate change represents one of the greatest challenges of our time, and demands that we actively pursue every opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In 2016, the Exelon Utilities joined the newly formed EPA Natural Gas STAR Methane Challenge Program. The voluntary Methane Challenge Program provides a new mechanism through which U.S. oil and gas companies can make more specific and transparent commitments to reducing methane emissions. The Program provides a platform for partners to showcase their efforts to reduce methane emissions, improve air quality, increase efficiency, and demonstrates company concern for the environment. The Exelon Utilities collectively have targeting meeting or exceeding a 2% per year pipe replacement rate in their gas distribution systems. PHI’s DPL Gas business has joined the other Exelon Utilities in this collective commitment to replace older cast iron and steel piping with plastic piping to reduce methane emissions.
See how we are managing materials and properties more efficiently.
We’re recycling tons of materials in the office and in the field—reducing our carbon footprint, cutting the amount of waste going into landfills.
Project HERE (Helping the Environment by Recycling at Exelon) increased recycling more than 173% over the previous year. The more than 1.35 million pounds of recycled material includes paper, cardboard, plastic and glass containers, and aluminum cans.
Industrial Recycling incorporates recycling of copper, aluminum, steel, lead, meters, transformers and oil. More than 20 million pounds of metals and more than 438 thousand gallons of oil were recycled in 2016. These two programs offset thousands of tons of carbon emissions. We continue to build on their combined success while also actively searching for ways to green our supply chain.
In 2008, our parent company, Exelon, led the formation of the Electric Utility Industry Sustainable Supply Chain Alliance, along with 14 other electric utilities. The Alliance works to improve environmental performance in electric utility industry supply chains. This includes the development of voluntary consensus standards for evaluating the environmental attributes of key materials and services provided to the electric utility industry; the environmental performance of suppliers to the electric utility industry; and the environmental performance of an electric utility industry company’s supply chain operations.
Exelon was also the first U.S. based utility to join the Carbon Disclosure Project’s Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration. As part of our commitment, Exelon is asking top suppliers to voluntarily disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption.
View our accomplishments in preserving and protecting wildlands and wildlife.
We are committed to maintaining the health of our environment by conserving, protecting and enhancing our natural resources. We fulfill this commitment by conducting our business with respect and care for the environment.
It is important to us to sustain the animal, bird and plant life throughout the areas we work in. We recognize the importance of trees to communities and are committed to protecting the beauty of tree canopies. Our avian protection program is designed to limit the potential for bird electrocution or collision with the company's overhead towers, poles and wires infrastructure. Learn more in our Avian Protection fact sheet.
PHI has developed a comprehensive avian protection plan to reduce bird mortalities from electrocution. This plan includes establishing new distribution line construction standards, removing or relocating nests, providing employee training on avian management and establishing bird perch deterrents.
We use a proactive approach both to help avoid the impacts on cultural and natural resource. We have developed a plan that balances our responsibility to provide reliable, safe electricity with natural resource protection. Whether it's enhancing, conserving, restoring or managing natural resources, we perform the work while keeping potential environmental impacts on our radar. Learn more in our Vegetation Management fact sheet.
All PHI utilities (Atlantic City Electric, Delmarva Power and Pepco) are active in community outreach and educational efforts to promote its Right Tree, Right Place initiative. Right Tree, Right Place advocates planting each tree species where it will thrive and not planting large species where they will interfere with power lines once they reach mature height. Planting the right tree in the right place can enhance property values and increase a home's energy efficiency year-round.
All PHI utilities have been named Tree Line USA Utilities by the Arbor Day Foundation. The Tree Line program is sponsored by the foundation in cooperation with the National Association of State Foresters. It recognizes utilities that demonstrate a program of quality tree care, annual tree worker training, public education, tree planting, and energy conservation through tree planting.
PHI has longstanding commitments to vegetation management and green infrastructure efforts to help promote the sequestration of carbon dioxide by trees and other vegetation to stabilize and gradually reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
PHI spends millions of dollars each year on tree clearance and vegetation management work around the company's electric transmission and distribution lines. This work ensures PHI maintains compliance with strict federal reliability standards for transmission system reliability..
Helping to preserve and protect wetland areas within our service territory is a key part of our responsibility as a corporate citizen. We are committed to protecting and preserving these valuable and sometimes endangered areas. We work closely with government agencies and others to maintain our compliance and ensure a proactive approach to conservation and protection. We also adhere to required wetland permit conditions. Whenever possible, we go beyond minimum compliance by employing state-of-the-art wetland protection measures and technologies.
We go about protecting these environmentally sensitive areas in a number of ways. We use the latest site assessment and planning techniques to protect habitats when we design, build, and operate new facilities as well as when we go about daily activities such as maintaining power lines that fall within wetland environments. Working closely with federal, state, regional, and local agencies to obtain the appropriate permits when working within regulated wetland areas is also a high priority and helps to protect and preserve these locations.
Our environmental and engineering teams work together to design new, or redesign existing, electric facilities to protect sensitive habitats. We work with regulatory agencies and engage with landowners, public agencies, nonprofit and community organizations, and other stakeholders who share our commitment to protect and preserve the natural environment. Wetlands are a vital part of a healthy natural ecosystem and serve the following functions: filters and cleanses surface water, reduces the effects of flooding by storing storm water and returning it to the water table, and serves as feeding and mating grounds for our valuable wildlife. At PHI it's our mission to protect and preserve these natural resources Learn more in our Wetlands Protection Fact sheet.
We are also committed to remediating, restoring and renewing ecosystems and habitats through careful planning and collaboration with the community and the regulators. Our goal is to limit the impacts from our operations and transform previous industrial property into clean, productive assets. Learn more in our Wildlife Protection fact sheet. Wildlife Protection Fact Sheet
PHI is committed to protecting and preserving natural habitats throughout our service territory. To this end we have achieved conservation certifications on 3 corporate sites through the Wildlife Habitat Council Conservation Certification Program, which recognizes corporations that demonstrate meaningful wildlife habitat management and conservation education programs on sites they manage. These 3 sites are also certified by the National Wildlife Federation as Certified Wildlife Habitats that provide the necessary elements to support wildlife. PHI is actively seeking to expand the number of certified sites throughout our service territory.
Our EMS assigns roles and responsibilities at each level of our organization.
To execute this policy, we have established an environmental management program or system (EMS) that assigns roles and responsibilities at each level of our organization. The EMS is an integral part of the Exelon Management Model, the framework for the way we do business.
Our EMS aimed at meeting ISO 14001 requirements is a continual cycle of planning, implementing, reviewing and improving the processes and actions that we undertake to meet our business and environmental goals. Built on the "Plan, Do, Check, Act" model, our EMS enables PHI to take the following actions:
Through ongoing support of our EMS program and execution of our environmental policy, our stakeholders can expect to see continued improvement in Exelon’s environmental performance.
Pepco's Benning Service Center is an important facility in Pepco's electric transmission and distribution system. Pepco has operated the Benning Service Center for more than 100 years, and it is the hub for approximately 700 employees working in buildings and facilities around the property.
Pepco has always conducted its operations in compliance with environmental regulations, which have evolved over time. However, these operations over the years may have impacted environmental conditions at the site.
Pepco's Benning Service Center is one of six publicly and privately owned sites along the Anacostia River that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the District Department of the Environment (DDOE) have identified as potential sources of pollutants impacting the river. An inspection by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concluded that some contaminants from historical operations appear to have migrated from the Benning Service Center site to the shoreline and sediments of the adjacent Anacostia River. The Anacostia is a valuable resource for the District of Columbia and its residents, and Pepco is committed to doing its part to support the efforts of the DDOE, the EPA, local environmental groups and D.C. residents to restore the river's environmental health.
Pepco is proud of our active cooperation with DDOE as we work toward the common goal of a cleaner Anacostia River that can reclaim its past identity as a treasured environmental and recreational resource within the District's urban environment.
Click here to learn more about our other environmental programs.
