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Enbridge plans to reduce its emissions intensity and overall emissions through a combination of replacing old equipment and changing how its existing equipment is powered by installing additional solar arrays, chief sustainability officer Pete Sheffield said.
It’s an awfully long bridge
Enbridge president Al Monaco
The new targets, he said, are also tied to employee and executive bonus compensation across the organization.
Projects and operations such as cogeneration, carbon capture and sequestration, CO2 flooding, and wind farms are not only helping to improve the GHG intensity of the electrical grid (equivalent to removing over 4.5 million cars annually from the road), but they are also driving lower supply costs for producers at competitive rates of return, CIBC’s Fong wrote.
“Full adoption of ESG-based investing is becoming a major focus, and appropriate and fulsome disclosure standards are needed to improve both intra- and inter-industry comparability,” Fong said. “We believe the mass adoption of ESG-based portfolio management and appropriate carbon-related disclosure could provide better transparency for Western Canada’s role as a participant in the energy transition.”
Still, Pembina’s Israel said, the commitments by large companies show that government can adopt more stringent environmental policies, as companies are making pledges that are more stringent than existing government targets.
For example, Israel said the commitments by Enbridge take the company further than the United State’s own current emissions pledges. He likened the move to the way power companies in Alberta have shown they’ve been able to eliminate coal-fired emissions years earlier than the scheduled phase-out date of 2030.
“It is great that there is a willingness in the sector to go beyond current policies,” Israel said.
• Email: [email protected] | Twitter: geoffreymorgan
