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Escalent Names 31 Utilities as Environmental Champions, Recognizing Their Dedication to the Environment This Earth Day

April 22, 2022

Utilities have a reason to celebrate Earth Day, as the industry’s Environmental Dedication score remains at a multi-year high of 686 (on a 1,000-point maximum scale). Since 2014, Escalent’s Environmental Dedication score comprises customer ratings of utility actions to build strong environmental stewardship. Among those actions, customers rate utilities highest on providing programs and tools that help them lower their energy consumption and on being committed to clean energy. This information is from Cogent Syndicated’s 2022 Utility Trusted Brand & Customer Engagement™: Residential management advisory study from Escalent, a top human behavior and analytics advisory firm.

The study finds 70% of utility customers nationwide believe climate change is happening and 64% say their utility should spend more on clean energy technology. And customers cite “clean environment” as the second-most important cause for a utility to support. But with only one in three (31%) customers actively aware of their utility’s efforts to help the environment, there’s huge opportunity for utilities to highlight their environmental efforts to raise their brand perceptions and customer satisfaction.

Premier utilities have successfully productized their environmental efforts in support of consumer demand for environmentally friendly products such as EVs (13% of customer demand), home or community solar (54%) and renewable natural gas (33%).

“Customers’ esteem for their utility increases when they are aware of their utility’s dedication to supporting the environment. Customer trust and utilities’ overall reputation significantly increase with awareness of environmental stewardship efforts, such as investing in clean energy options and highlighting ways utilities limit the environmental impact of their service,” said K.C. Boyce, vice president at Escalent. “Environmental Dedication is absolutely critical for utilities that want to build strong customer relationships.”

On this Earth Day, Escalent congratulates the Cogent Syndicated 2022 Environmental Champion utilities. The 31 utilities below stand out among the 140 utilities surveyed for winning high marks from their customers for their environmental stewardship.

2022 Environmental Champions
Utility Environmental Dedication Score Utility Environmental Dedication Score
AEP Ohio 703 MidAmerican Energy 721
Atmos Energy – Midwest 691 Nicor Gas 689
BGE 731 NW Natural 736
Black Hills Energy – Midwest 738 OPPD 687
Cascade Natural Gas 724 OUC 744
CenterPoint Energy – Midwest 700 Peoples Gas 697
Columbia Gas – South 735 Pepco 707
Columbia Gas of Ohio 704 Philadelphia Gas Works 748
ComEd 694 Piedmont Natural Gas 730
Con Edison 713 Portland General Electric 736
Consumers Energy 731 PPL Electric Utilities 706
Florida City Gas Company 743 SMUD 742
Florida Power & Light 725 TECO Peoples Gas 742
Green Mountain Power 722 Wisconsin Public Service 719
Idaho Power 739 Xcel Energy Colorado 733
Kentucky Utilities 726

About Utility Trusted Brand & Customer Engagement™: Residential

Escalent conducted surveys among 79,223 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 to balance the influence of each utility’s customers on survey results. The Environmental Dedication score is a composite index based upon consumer ratings across four attributes. Escalent will supply the exact wording of any survey question upon request.

For more information on the full report, click below.

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