Utilities have some good news to share on this 50th anniversary of Earth Day: customers are scoring them significantly higher on environmental stewardship. Escalent’s Environmental Dedication Index represents customer ratings on utility efforts to protect the environment. The overall industry index score improved this year, with customers scoring their utilities higher on encouraging “green” initiatives for buildings and vehicles and on supporting environmental causes. The Environmental Dedication Index and other findings are from the Cogent Syndicated Utility Trusted Brand & Customer Engagement™: Residential study from Escalent, a top human behavior and analytics firm.
“With the ever-growing discussion of environmental issues, customers say utilities are responding well through initiatives and programs that help create a cleaner planet,” said Chris Oberle, senior vice president at Escalent. “Measuring environmental dedication is now essential to doing business, as Wall Street investment houses are tying utility environmental stewardship to utilities’ financial performance.”
The industry’s overall Environmental Dedication Index score increases to 676 (on a 1,000-point scale) for Q1, 2020. However, performance varies greatly among the 140 utilities covered in the study, with 24 significantly increasing their scores this year and 20 significantly decreasing. Other findings from the study include:
Escalent congratulates the following utilities for being named the 2020 Environmental Champions among 140 of their utility peers in the Cogent Syndicated study. Their customers have scored their performance among the top in the industry on the Environmental Dedication Index.
2020 Utility Environmental Champions |
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AEP Ohio | Florida City Gas Company | Pepco |
Avista | Florida Power & Light | PPL Electric Utilities |
BGE | Green Mountain Power | Puget Sound Energy |
ComEd | Idaho Power | RG&E |
Con Edison | MidAmerican Energy | Seattle City Light |
CPS Energy | NW Natural | SMUD |
Dayton Power & Light | OPPD | SoCalGas |
Delmarva Power | OUC | TECO Peoples Gas |
DTE Energy | PECO | Washington Gas |
Elizabethtown Gas | Peoples Gas | Xcel Energy – Midwest |
Xcel Energy – West |
Escalent conducted surveys among 69,620 residential electric, natural gas and combination utility customers of the 140 largest US utility companies (based on residential customer counts). The sample design uses a combination of quotas and weighting based on US census data to ensure a demographically balanced sample of each evaluated utility’s customers based on age, gender, income, race and ethnicity. Utilities within the same region and of the same type (e.g., electric-only providers) are given equal weight in order to balance the influence of each utility’s customers on survey results. Escalent will supply the exact wording of any survey question upon request.
Click below for more information on the full report.