Sempra’s commitment to innovation, sustainability & leadership in Texas
By Sempra
Sempra is a North American energy infrastructure company helping to advance the global energy transition by enabling the delivery of lower-carbon energy solutions in every market it serves.
As Sempra helps advance the global energy transition, its energy behind Texas continues to grow and is anchored in the key pillars presented in the company’s 13th annual Corporate Sustainability Report (CSR), titled “Innovation, Sustainability and Leadership.” Enabling the energy transition, driving resilient operations, achieving world-class safety and championing people are the primary drivers of the company’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives, and are showcased throughout its operations in the Lone Star State.
Supporting the energy transition
In its pursuit to deliver safe, resilient and reliable energy, Sempra’s Texas operations have adopted the company's "3Ds" framework — decarbonization, diversification and digitalization — all in an effort to support its enterprise-wide goal to deliver lower-carbon energy solutions in every market it serves. By building and investing in infrastructure that delivers less carbon-intensive forms of energy, Sempra embraces Texas’ leadership in achieving its climate goals.
“We think there is an opportunity to continue making real progress in lowering global emissions and are committed to advancing critical new infrastructure investments that support decarbonizing the economies of North America, while making lower-to zero-carbon energy sources available to our global partners.”
— Jeff Martin, chairman and CEO of Sempra
Texas’ support for flexible natural gas generation has enabled the state’s position in renewable energy, making it a leader in wind generation in the U.S. In the first quarter of 2021, more than 30% of the energy produced in the state came from renewable energy. Similar shifts around the U.S. have enabled the country to be a global leader in lowering carbon emissions. From 2005 to 2019, the shift from coal to natural gas and renewable energy reduced U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 5,475 million metric tons, with more than half of that reduction attributed to the shift to natural gas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The International Energy Agency noted that the U.S. led the world with the largest reduction of manmade greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the last 20 years — down almost 1 gigaton from a 2000 peak, largely driven by fuel switching to natural gas.
As seen with Cameron LNG, Sempra’s primary LNG operating asset in Louisiana, using LNG can help reduce global carbon dioxide emissions. Each cargo of LNG, when used to displace coal-fired generation, reduces global GHG emissions by as much as 200,000 metric tons. Cameron LNG’s 114 cargos shipped in 2020 have the same potential GHG emissions benefit as removing nearly 5 million cars off the road. LNG is also a demonstrated and scalable lower-carbon marine fuel, reducing emissions from shipping by up to 23% compared to oil-based marine fuels over the entire life cycle. Sempra LNG has announced goals to lower the carbon dioxide intensity level of this facility’s operations and is exploring new technologies like carbon capture and sequestration to further reduce emissions.
As Sempra looks to its LNG business to help bolster the energy transition worldwide, it sees the industry playing a key role in further reducing emissions here in the U.S., including the potential to reduce, and ultimately eliminate, routine flaring and venting of natural gas to instead capture and deliver this valuable resource to global markets.
Resilient operations meet high safety standards
Safety underpins the high-performance culture seen in its Texas activity and everywhere Sempra operates. But a worldwide pandemic and catastrophic hurricanes put Sempra LNG’s safety and infrastructure design standards to the test. Thanks to the company’s practice of continuous learning and improvement, enhanced approaches to emergency preparedness and response are in place — all working to ensure sustainable development, design and operations of its infrastructure. By prioritizing community safety, every employee feels responsible for their own safety as well as the safety of others and works to identify and mitigate risks while safely delivering energy.
As Sempra continues to advance its proposed Port Arthur LNG export facility, the focus on safety will follow the example set by its Cameron LNG operations, which has exceeded industry safety standards with more than 89 million work hours achieved without a lost time incident — even after experiencing the effects of two Category 4 hurricanes in 2020, with no injuries and minimal damage to the newly constructed liquefaction facilities. Port Arthur LNG has just marked 1.5 million hours with no lost time incidents as work on preliminary construction activities continues.
Championing people
Sempra is consistently recognized as a leader in sustainable business practices and for its long-standing commitment to building a high-performance culture including safety, workforce development and training, and diversity and inclusion. Sempra is the only North American utility sector company included on the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index and was also named one of the "World's Most Admired Companies" for 2021 by Fortune Magazine. Guided by the company’s core values — “do the right thing, champion people and shape the future” — Sempra and its more than 19,000 employees are working to help solve some of society’s greatest and most pressing energy challenges by delivering energy with purpose. Follow all of Sempra’s Texas updates at Sempra.com/Texas.
Sempra is helping to advance the global energy transition by enabling the delivery of lower-carbon energy solutions in every market it serves.