Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Report 2018

Our Approach

PG&E makes it a priority to include diverse business enterprises (DBEs)—small businesses and businesses owned by women, minorities, service-disabled veterans and LGBTQ individuals—in our supply chain. We collaborate with the public and private sector, including with community-based organizations and diversity advocacy groups, to help grow DBEs and empower them to succeed in today’s economy.

In addition, we host workshops and training sessions to help our suppliers operate more safely, securely and sustainably.

Championing Diverse Suppliers

Within PG&E, a group of supplier diversity champions, with support from the supplier diversity team, set diversity goals, share best practices and monitor progress within their lines of business, with the direct support of senior leadership. In addition, PG&E’s Supply Chain Responsibility Awards recognize employees who have made the largest impact on our diversity efforts.

At diverse business community events, we are represented by supplier diversity staff and volunteer outreach ambassadors who share information about how to do business with corporations like PG&E.

Focusing on Small Businesses

To support small businesses, PG&E hosts workshops and training sessions throughout the year, including collaborating with the U.S. Small Business Administration and other community partners to hold capacity-building training seminars.

Encouraging Prime Suppliers to Participate in Supplier Diversity

We encourage our prime suppliers to submit a supplier diversity plan, set a supplier diversity performance goal, report on subcontracting with diverse suppliers and then detail their progress toward these goals.

In 2018, our Prime Supplier Academy celebrated its fourth year of success in delivering supply chain responsibility training to PG&E suppliers. The Academy provides resources, tools and training to assist prime suppliers with increasing engagement in and ownership of their own supplier diversity initiatives, as well as environmental sustainability and supplier code of conduct initiatives.

Strengthening Suppliers and Relationships

PG&E offers a wide variety of Technical Assistance Program initiatives to our suppliers, many in collaboration with community organizations. Among other things, these initiatives help diverse suppliers build their business acumen and include scholarship opportunities for the UCLA Management Development for Entrepreneurs Program, the University of Washington Minority Business Executive Program, Tuck Minority Business Programs at Dartmouth and U.C. Berkeley.

PG&E also sponsors educational scholarships that help diverse suppliers manage supply chain risk and improve quality via International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification. These scholarships provide DBEs with one-on-one training that helps them successfully implement ISO standards in their management systems.

2018 Milestones

Highlights from 2018 include:

• Offered enhanced training to diverse businesses. We expanded the supplier training we provide in the areas of our strategic sourcing process, greenhouse gas emissions tracking and reporting, financial education, process improvement and risk management.
• Strengthened education for prime suppliers. We increased our Prime Supplier Academy curriculum to seven in-person workshops that offered resources and tools to help suppliers increase their engagement in supplier diversity, environmental sustainability and adherence with PG&E’s supplier code of conduct.
• Increased inclusion efforts with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Business Enterprises (LGBTBE). We expanded our collaborations with local and national LGBTBE organizations and facilitated introductions between LGBTBEs and our line-of-business decision-makers. As a result, we increased our spend year-over-year with these suppliers by more than 70 percent in 2018, spending $2.5 million with nine businesses as direct and subcontracting suppliers.

Measuring Progress

In 2018, PG&E spent $2.98 billion with diverse suppliers, representing 41.43 percent of our total procurement expenditures. This was the seventh consecutive year that PG&E exceeded $2 billion and the 13th consecutive year Pacific Gas and Electric Company exceeded the California Public Utilities Commission’s goal of 21.5 percent.

In addition, PG&E’s supplier diversity subcontracting performance increased, with PG&E’s prime suppliers reporting more than $725 million in spending with DBEs, representing a 4.0 percent increase over 2017.

Highlights of PG&E’s spending with diverse suppliers included:

• Minority-owned business enterprises: $1.83 billion
• Woman-owned business enterprises: $830 million
• Service-disabled veteran-owned business enterprises: $322 million
• LGBTQ-owned business enterprises: $2.50 million