ESG at Clearway

Our Commitment to Sustainability

Clearway is leading the transition to a world powered by clean energy by providing affordable, reliable, clean power to customers and communities across the country. A full-scope development and operations platform, we participate in every stage of the lifecycle of our projects – from origination and development, through construction and financing, to long-term ownership, management, and operations. In everything we do, we strive to create an enduring platform for our customers, counterparties, partners, and stakeholders.

Clearway Energy Group LLC and our public affiliate Clearway Energy, Inc. own and operate one of the largest renewable energy fleets across the country. As we develop our 30 GW pipeline of new clean energy projects nationwide, Clearway’s 5.7 GW of wind, solar, and energy storage assets is estimated to offset the equivalent of nearly 10.5 million metric tons of carbon emissions for our customers each year.

Our commitment to making the world a better place begins with considering the long-term impacts of everything we do. At Clearway, sustainability means operating our business in a way that protects, conserves, and enhances biodiversity, preserves natural resources, enriches the health, safety, and wellbeing of our employees, advances social equity, and creates positive impacts within the communities where we work and live.

Clearway’s 5.7 GW of wind, solar, and energy storage deliver benefits equivalent to:

10.5 million metric tons of CO
2

avoided for our customers annually

2.1 million cars

taken off the road each year

1.7 million homes

ESG Resources

View ESG Report

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Diversity of perspective, background, and experience are highly valued at Clearway, and our commitment to inclusivity and belonging is integral to who we are as a company. Clearway’s DEI initiatives are focused on three core areas: People, Products and Customers, and Purchasing. These core areas are evolving via a four-pronged framework that ensures concurrent progress in our metrics, processes, educational initiatives, and the programmatic elements that we’re putting into place to support long-term success in each of the three areas.

Our People

How we recruit, retain, engage, and train our employees.

Our Products and Customers

How we can better partner with and understand the needs of underserved markets, as well as diversify our customer base.

Our Purchasing

How we establish and maintain non-discriminatory practices in our purchasing as we lay the groundwork for a full-fledged supplier diversity program and endeavor to set ourselves apart as a leader within the industry around supplier diversity.

Expansion of Our Employee Inclusion Groups

Clearway’s Employee Inclusion Groups (EIGs) are company sponsored, voluntary, employee-led communities open to all employees and dedicated to supporting specific demographic populations. Each EIG has an executive sponsor from the executive leadership team and is led by two co-chairs. Our EIGs strive to build inclusive, supportive communities that celebrate individual and cultural diversity, and are a critical linchpin of the Clearway culture. EIGs are responsive to the needs and interests of their members, which they represent to the company, and provide personal and professional development through sponsorship and mentorship opportunities as well as learning and development programs.

Health & Safety

At Clearway, we are committed to the health and safety of our workforce and the communities in which we work. We constantly strive to be role models within our industry and encourage our employees to keep safety at the top of their mind. We are committed to maintaining a safe work environment and to creating an inclusive safety culture where safety is everyone’s job.

We maintain a robust monitoring and reporting framework that originates with our employees and safety teams in the field and is communicated up to our senior management, CEO and board of directors.

Our environmental health and safety (EHS) program follows the ISO 45001 standard and is structured around our EHS management system. It consists of 15 essential elements that align with recognized international EHS management standards and the continuous improvement cycle of Plan-Do-Check-Act.

Contractors working on our construction sites are required to report major incidents to our construction team immediately, and to submit weekly EHS reports that are tracked and reported to senior management on a monthly basis.

Environmental Stewardship

Clearway’s focus on clean energy production is rooted in a desire to protect and conserve the natural resources around us. Our commitment to environmental stewardship begins with understanding the potential and actual impacts of our projects on animal, bird, and plant species, and preventing or mitigating these impacts when they occur.

In the U.S., all power generation projects are required to go through extensive environmental review and permitting processes at the federal, state, and/or local level. This can include comprehensive environmental impact assessments that evaluate a project’s potential impact on wildlife habitat, biodiversity, and other aspects of the natural environment.

Our robust environmental policies and procedures ensure that new projects meet or exceed federal, state, and local environmental requirements. Environmental performance at our operational sites is tracked through our environmental management system, which is also used to monitor and report incidents. Material information including key performance indicators (KPIs), metrics, and if applicable, any incidents, violations, inspections by agencies, or the emergence of potential risks is reported to senior management on at least a monthly basis, and in turn to our Board of Directors. In addition, numerous quarterly and annual performance metrics are reported to our owners.

Bio-Monitors

For our sites within the migration corridor used by the Aransas-Wood Buffalo population of whooping cranes we conduct mandatory awareness training for all staff who work at these sites. At other wind sites, we use bio-monitors to watch for eagles flying near the wind turbines and stop the operation of those wind turbines to protect the eagles.

Seasonal Curtailment

“Seasonal curtailment” is used to help protect bats at a wind site with significant bat activity. During the summer and fall seasons when bat activity is highest, the site’s turbines are stopped if wind speeds are below a set “cut-in” speed – if wind speeds are above this cut-in speed, bats are unlikely to be flying.

Conservation

We created a 50-acre conservation easement within the Alpine Solar facility to protect land suitable for the restoration and enhancement of burrowing owl nesting and foraging habitat. At several sites we maintain wildlife corridors for small mammals by creating openings in the bottom of security fences at our solar sites. At California Valley Solar Ranch, site lands within the conservation easement had been degraded by past farming and grazing. In 2020 we completed seeding 71 acres of the easement with native shrubs to enhance the habitat for giant kangaroo rat, San Joaquin kit fox, San Joaquin antelope squirrel, and pronghorn antelope.

Habitat Protection

We protected approximately 4.75 acres of habitat for the black-capped vireo, a small bird native to the U.S. and Mexico, at our Langford wind site in Texas. In addition to barriers to protect the habitat, we conduct awareness training for all visitors and staff to educate them about the black-capped vireo and the importance of conserving biodiversity.

Governance

At Clearway, sustainability is a core element of our business. We believe that reporting on ESG matters will improve our understanding of our impacts and help guide us in our journey to continually improve the sustainability of our activities and operations. Learn more about governance at Clearway Energy Group LLC. Learn more about governance at our public affiliate Clearway Energy, Inc..

And to learn more about governance across the Clearway enterprise, please refer to our 2020 ESG report and Clearway’s GRI Index.

Learn More

Climate Scenario Analysis

Clearway’s core purpose as a company is to address the global challenge of climate change by accelerating the world’s transition to zero-carbon renewable energy sources like wind and solar. As we work to create a sustainable future, we’re mindful that climate change is already occurring and has the potential to significantly impact our future business activities through changes in weather patterns and extreme weather events.

To understand these potential impacts and manage the attendant risks, in 2020 we conducted a climate scenario analysis. The analysis examined three scenarios and the associated physical and transitional risks associated with each:

1
Sustainable Futures Scenario
less than a 1.5 degree increase in global temperatures by 2050
2
2 Degree Scenario
a 2 degree increase in global temperatures by 2050
3
Current Policies Scenario
business as usual resulting in a 3 degree or greater increase in global temperatures by 2050

Each of these scenarios paints a different picture of the world in 2050 and allows us to assess our current and future strategies against them. To learn more, please read the full analysis.