Equity at Eversource Energy

How energy and utilities companies show up in their communities takes thoughtful and hard work these days. That is because companies realize the importance of the workforce reflecting those communities in which they serve, and yet it is so much more.

But realizing importance and achievement are two different things, because there are layers involved in equity. Equity involves employees, yes, but all stakeholders in a service territory, as well as weaving together issues surrounding the environment, economics, education, and more.

Public Utilities Fortnightly brought together three experts on equity issues, who have dedicated their lives to this endeavor and have powerful voices on the subject. Listen in on these conversations with Southern Company's Jonathan Porter and Eversource Energy's Theresa Hopkins-Staten, led by Larry Glover.
 

Larry Glover: At Eversource, you are President of the Eversource Foundation and VP of Corporate Citizenship and Equity. Why was equity added and how is that an important piece of this conversation?

Theresa Hopkins-Staten: I got a call in May of 2021 from our now acting Chief Operations Officer Jim Hunt, whom I reported to, saying, "Theresa, we created this position of Vice President of Corporate Citizenship and Equity and Joe Nolan"— who had just become CEO — "said he felt it would be a great position for you." 

Eversource was part of the movement to make certain that our policies, practices, and decision-making processes were equitable, and created my position. When I began this work in 2021, we didn't have a full understanding of what equity meant because we had never been asked to examine our decision-making practices or policies through an equitable lens.

Understanding the opportunity, I turned to our leadership to gain insight on what we needed to focus on at Eversource. I had candid conversations with seventeen of our top leaders around equity, what it meant to them, their business units, and our company. Were they talking about it currently? Is it embedded in policies and business practices?

Based on their responses, there were six recurring themes, which guided the work at Eversource.

I also asked each leader to identify someone from their team to join me on this equity journey, because it could not just be me. It had to be a collective and diverse effort. They all identified someone to be on what I later called the Pro-Equity Advisory Team or PEAT.

We all knew about equality but did not make a distinction between equity and equality and why both mattered. As I looked at our peers in Fortune 500 companies, this was all new and evolving, with some taking the equity and EJ work and tucking it into their diversity and inclusion strategy or their sustainability work, so companies were doing it differently. There was no roadmap.

I've been with Eversource for thirty-five years and have experience across many of our business areas interacting with regulators, customers, and communities. I spent time doing an executive rotation in our operations area to get a firsthand view into how operations worked.

I worked with union/nonunion employees. I went into manholes, attended grievance hearings, and did safety investigations. It gave me a first-hand look at the work we do and how our customers see that work.

I still rely on those experiences in my work today to drive important conversations around equity and how as a company we can operationalize equity across all parts of our business.

Larry Glover: Talk about that extensive program you put together and its goals.

Theresa Hopkins-Staten: We wanted to operationalize equity across Eversource. To build a culture that reflects our equity vision and our commitment. 

Incorporating equity into our decision-making policies and practices, resulting in fair and equitable outcomes for our communities and our customers, particularly customers and communities that have been historically underserved, under-resourced, and environmentally overburdened. That was the goal.

First, we identified our stakeholders and defined equity at Eversource. We had to have a clear definition and a face to begin this work.

This is how we defined it: "Equity means engaging all stakeholders — including our customers and communities with respect and dignity while working toward fair and just outcomes, especially for those burdened with economic challenges, racial inequity, negative environmental impacts and justice disparities."

We then developed a commitment statement that clearly defines principles that align with our equity definition and boldly articulates what Eversource is prepared to do to lead this trailblazing work; developed guidelines; resource tools; and training for our employees.

From there, we identified strategic pillars to anchor our equity work in. To implement that in the real world, we focus on communications effectiveness. How are we talking to our customers? Do we know our customer demographics, different languages, dialects spoken? The best channels to communicate with them?

We increased our engagement with underserved and environmental justice communities. Do we know who the key influencers are in our communities? You can't assume you have the answers and know what's best. You must ask and at the end of the conversation, always leave people with their dignity and respect intact.

Seek to balance resiliency, equity, and affordability by proactively listening to our customers early in any process before any plans are finalized or decisions are made. A clean energy future, getting energy to high-growth areas on our system, electrification, will all require new infrastructure and upgrading existing assets.

We must be able to explain to our customers the why behind our work and the benefits they receive. We must understand customer needs, design programs and services to address the need, and work to remove barriers to their participation in our programs and services to ensure equitable outcomes.

It's important to meet our customers where they are by acknowledging historical inequities and ongoing disparities, challenges, and concerns. That's the only way to open the lines of communication and to begin to build trust.

Larry Glover: Are you seeing results? Are you seeing greater collaboration, people doing things they would not have done a year ago before this started? What's been the impact on people and your business?

Theresa Hopkins-Staten: The impact on our employees is evident. People are having conversations and are asking questions. I've had employees call me and say, "I want to understand this topic better."

I currently have a team of two and just hired a Director of Equity and Environmental Justice. One of the functions is to support business partners to integrate equity and EJ priorities into their work that directly impacts our communities.

My team attends meetings throughout our company to discuss equity and environmental justice, all in an effort to improve our operational systems and practices to ensure we reach fair and equitable outcomes for our customers and communities.

In 2024, our business partners will have at least one equity goal, and some of them voluntarily took the initiative to have one this year. There is a level of comfort, I'm happy to see and say around having conversations. Our goal is to counsel people in, and not to cancel them out.

We did an online survey of one thousand Eversource employees before launching the PEAT's Equity Fundamentals Training last October. Very few employees responded that they had knowledge of the company incorporating equity into how we serve communities or customers, were aware of the PEAT's work or knew the distinction between equity and equality.

Fast forward to today, and we surveyed two thousand five hundred employees who completed the equity training and there was a dramatic improvement in the results. Over eighty-eight percent of the employees responding knew the difference between equity and equality and felt the company is committed to equity and environmental justice.

Larry Glover: Talk about the community benefits plan, what that looked like, and what you expect for the impact on the community.

Theresa Hopkins-Staten: A community benefits plan was a part of an application submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnership and Smart Grid Grants Program. 

The plan that we submitted required us to do outreach to some partners, Boys and Girls Clubs of Hartford (BGCH), Urban League of Greater Hartford, Capital Community College in Connecticut, the Community Renewal Team, and others. We also engaged prominent environmental justice leaders to get feedback on our proposal and incorporated their suggested changes.

Eversource has a long-standing partnership with BGCH and if we're successful, part of the grant will go to BGCH to install roof-top solar panels and behind-the-meter battery energy storage. We'll also create an Energy Innovation Center to build on existing STEM initiatives at the Club.

Community partners have agreed to support the Diversity Workforce Training Partners and Pre-apprenticeship Program in our application.

In addition to the environmental justice advocates in Hartford, we've reached out to organizations in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and have been told, "We don't think you're as sensitive to the history that many of these communities have been subject to, and you can do a better job."

We listened, learned, and agreed that some things need to be improved. Once we do that, the tone of the conversation usually changes.

Larry Glover: You have younger employees joining Eversource, and are they different?

Theresa Hopkins-Staten: There's a business case around this work. A company's reputation is sixty-three percent of its value. Our company's reputation is our greatest asset. 

As you hire younger professionals into the company, they want to know, what is your ESG commitment? They want to know what are you doing around equity, environmental justice, and inclusion?

They want to hear about those things. The younger generation being hired into the company cares passionately about these issues. 

I taught a class at Central Connecticut State University and their questions were about how we treat our employees. Not about pension plans or salaries. If they don't see you walk the talk and demonstrate a true commitment to these values, they'll leave.

Our senior team understands the business case, but more important understands it's the right thing to do. When you don't do it, you get opposition in dockets, siting proceedings, and regulatory proceedings. It delays decisions, which increases costs.

This is a change management initiative, so we had an Organizational Change Management and Communication subcommittee and strategy, which started developing a work plan around what the cadence would be to roll this out to employees.

We also had a Governance Committee subcommittee because we knew once members went back to their blue-sky work, we needed an entity to oversee the progress we were making. Our CEO, Joe Nolan, appointed nine officers to the Governance Committee to oversee the work, making certain we stay on task and on top of our commitment to equity and environmental justice.

Larry Glover: What is your message nationally to the senior audience?

Theresa Hopkins-Staten: My hope is that we all take away something meaningful from the challenges and opportunities presented in equity and environmental justice work. Let us embrace our collective humanity recognizing the value of each community, different history, experiences and resulting needs.

Operationalizing equity starts from within the organization and branches out. Once we give our employees the tools, resources, and awareness they need to use the equity lens effectively and confidently, we will all be better off. It's no small feat, but it's something that we can accomplish. I'm proud to lead this work for Eversource.

Equity conversations at fortnightly.com:

• Jonathan Porter, Alabama Power/Southern Co. SVP of Customer Operations

• Theresa Hopkins-Staten, Eversource Energy VP of Corporate Citizenship and Equity