Understanding Sustainability Progress: How to Gauge & Advance Your Clean Energy Rank

Companies worldwide have become fixated on the same three-letter abbreviation: ESG. For the unfamiliar, Environmental, Social, and Governance is an umbrella of initiatives focused on improving an organization’s environmental impact, how it treats its employees, customers, and surrounding community; and how the organization itself is managed.  

Environmental sustainability is a big component of corporate ESG strategy, which includes taking steps to reduce emissions. Adopting clean technology (cleantech) solutions such as solar energy generation, battery energy storage, and electric vehicle (EV) charging can help organizations like yours achieve sustainability goals — but understanding how to go about it can be tricky.

PowerFlex’s Clean Energy Maturity Model helps you do exactly that. It breaks down sustainability into 5 maturity levels based on an organization’s adoption, optimization, and monetization of clean technologies.  

In this blog post, we’ll break down each maturity level, impart strategies to increase your own organization's standing, and provide real-world examples of how companies are implementing clean energy.

Clean Energy Maturity Levels

The Clean Energy Maturity Model consists of 5 different levels: Explorer, Adopter, Optimizer, Leader, and the highest level, Innovator. Here’s a quick summary of each level’s defining characteristics.

Explorer

• Net carbon emitter; has identified some budget to improve its carbon footprint

• Concerned about the price volatility and unreliability of fossil fuels  

• Relies largely on third parties for clean energy information and guidance

• Curious about how clean energy can benefit its business but hasn’t taken steps to incorporate clean energy assets

Adopter

• Carbon reducer; has identified funding sources for clean energy assets

• Launched a clean energy pilot project consisting of a single asset type (such as a solar array) and is using it primarily to reduce energy costs

• Deploying a software point solution to manage the energy asset

Optimizer

• Maintains a net-zero carbon footprint

• Running multiple clean energy projects across different asset types

• Deploying site-level optimizations across multiple clean energy assets to maximize performance

• Leveraging clean energy outcomes to fund future clean energy expansion

Leader

• Maintains a net-negative carbon footprint and is pursuing energy independence

• Achieved complete adoption of clean energy assets across entire portfolio

• Deploying portfolio-level optimizations to manage clean energy assets

• Monetizing clean energy assets for the revenue benefit of the business

• Forming coalitions to advocate for favorable clean energy policies and regulations

Innovator

• Actively cultivating an eco-friendly energy community

• Participating in the early adoption of new clean technologies

• Sharing clean energy benefits and resources with their industry peers and surrounding businesses and residents

• Investing in the larger energy ecosystem to build a zero-carbon future for all

As an organization makes clean energy more of a priority in its daily operations, it moves from one maturity level to the next. In the following section, we’ll explore some strategies that can help facilitate this advancement.

Moving Up in Maturity Level

Moving up through the clean energy maturity levels is a journey that requires careful planning, commitment, and adaptation to new technologies and methodologies. Here are some broad actions your organization should be prioritizing.  

1. Information Gathering: Organizations should actively seek out detailed information about clean energy technologies and their benefits from reputable industry and government sources such as the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), Wood Mackenzie, and Gartner. This step is crucial for forming a solid business case for the implementation of clean energy solutions.
   

2. Securing Funding: It is essential to discover and secure various funding sources, including federal, state, and utility-level incentives. These financial supports play a pivotal role in facilitating the initial investment required for clean energy projects. (Eventually, organizations can monetize their current energy assets with the goal of using the revenue to bankroll the development of future assets.)
   

3. Pilot Programs: Implementing a pilot program is a strategic action to assess the performance and viability of clean energy assets on your property. Organizations should define clear goals and success metrics for these pilots to effectively measure their outcomes and plan for future installations.
   

4. Site-to-Portfolio Expansion: Organizations should look to deploy clean energy across their operations, starting with one site and scaling up to eventually include all properties. As your clean energy footprint grows, you should deploy portfolio-wide optimizations to maximize energy generation, utilization, cost savings, and revenue.
   

5. Making Sustainability a Priority: After first relying on external information and guidance, organizations must aim to bring expertise in house and form a dedicated internal sustainability team. This will aid in clean energy planning and execution, as well as emissions reduction and tracking of ESG goals.  

It’s also important to make sustainability part of the corporate culture and infuse a sustainable mindset throughout the organization to nurture and maintain support for clean energy projects. Once sustainability has been fully embraced internally, companies can turn their advocacy efforts outward to help their peers adopt clean energy and lobby for government regulations that are conducive to a carbon-free future.

The Maturity Model in Action

So, what does the Clean Energy Maturity Model look like when it’s put into practice? The following case studies show how PowerFlex customers are leveraging clean energy at multiple maturity levels as they get closer to achieving their ESG goals.

DHL (Adopter)

One of the largest logistics companies in the world, DHL is an inspired organization that is currently taking steps to mitigate its environmental impact by strategically adopting a single type of clean energy asset: electric vehicle charging.

As the company is introducing electric vans and trucks into its massive fleet, DHL is installing hundreds of PowerFlex charging stations at their facilities across the United States. By 2030, DHL plans to have electrified at least 60% of its last-mile delivery vehicles.

Making the transition from gas-powered vehicles to EVs means DHL is actively reducing its carbon emissions — and the company has even pledged to eliminate them from its operations entirely by 2050.

Target (Optimizer)

Target Corporation is one of the top ten retailers in the United States, generating more than $100 billion annually. Having made good on its goal of installing solar at 500 store locations by 2020, the company has set its sights on sourcing all its electricity from renewables by 2030 and becoming net-zero by 2040.

That’s why Target is continuing to build out its nationwide portfolio of solar energy systems with PowerFlex. The projects amount to nearly 70 megawatts (MW) of total solar capacity and generate 95 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of clean electricity annually — enough to power more than 7,800 homes for an entire year.

Target is also developing several multi-technology projects in California that will combine solar generation with battery energy storage.

Prologis (Leader)

Prologis is a global leader in logistics real estate that maintains a portfolio of holdings spanning multiple countries and continents. Realizing that a solar energy system can be an attractive selling point to tenants, Prologis has fully embraced solar across its properties.

Tenants “buy” the clean electricity produced by the systems at favorable rates through power purchase agreements with Prologis.  

A win for both the company and the customers and communities it serves, Prologis has set an ambitious goal to deploy 1 gigawatt (GW) worth of solar and energy storage projects. The company has also implemented EV chargers to accommodate the needs of eco-conscious tenants who drive electric vehicles.

Medline (Innovator)

Medline is the largest privately held manufacturer and distributor of medical products, so it’s more than fitting that the company hosts the largest rooftop solar energy system in New York State.

A community solar project, the 7.2-MW system not only generates clean electricity to help power Medline’s facility but also allows surrounding residents and businesses, as well as Medline’s own employees, to benefit from renewable energy.

The system generates 8.5 million kWh of clean energy annually, enough to power over 1,600 homes, while reducing carbon emission by nearly 6,000 metric tons annually, the equivalent of taking over 1,200 cars off the road.

Find Out Your Level of Clean Energy Maturity

Curious to know where your organization currently sits in the Clean Energy Maturity Model? Take our 10-question self-assessment — it's totally free.  

Once you’ve gotten your rank, feel free to reach out to us here at PowerFlex to talk about the steps you can take to make clean energy and sustainability in general a bigger part of your business operations with solutions like solar, energy storage, EV charging, and much more.