NRG Energy – Joyceline Marealle – 2021

Goals

NRG Energy is a Fortune 500 company operating in the United States and Canada. The company delivers innovative energy solutions and products while advocating for customer choice and working towards a sustainable future. NRG sought an EDF Climate Corps Fellow to support its Corporate Sustainability Team on various company-wide sustainability initiatives, including benchmarking scope 3 goals, analyzing Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) reports, and performing quality checks on select data.

Solutions

To enhance NRG’s scope 3 reporting, Joyceline conducted research on peer companies, benchmarked their disclosures, and established targets and strategies to achieve those goals. As a leader in disclosure and transparency, NRG participates in numerous ESG questionnaires and surveys, including CDP and Sustainalytics. In an effort to further strengthen NRG’s response to these platforms, Joyceline reviewed the methodology of the questionnaires and identified strategic areas of improvement for the company. Throughout the engagement, she attended various meetings and provided administrative support for the Sustainability Team. Finally, Joyceline reviewed data sets from newly acquired Direct Energy that will eventually be included in NRG’s value chain of emissions. 

Potential Impact

Joyceline participated in many of the day-to-day functions for NRG’s Sustainability Team. NRG has a certified science-based target to achieve 50% reduction of absolute GHG emissions (scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 business travel) by 2025 and net-zero by 2050 from a 2014 baseline. Her initial benchmarking of industry scope 3 goals and review of newly acquired environmental data could support decision making around expanding NRG’s current science based target to include additional categories of scope 3. Additionally, NRG may have the opportunity to improve their standings with CDP Climate Change and Water Risk through Marealle’s model.