Commercial, Energy Efficiency, Industrial, Utilities, Sourcing Renewables  -  April 27, 2019

Weekend reads: What companies are best for the environment?; Utility politics

It's the weekend! Kick back and catch up with these must-read articles from around the web:

The Top 33 Companies For The Environment By Industry (Forbes) No matter your political leaning, Rachel Carson’s famous words ring true: “In nature, nothing exists alone.” This year’s Earth Day tackles how we can keep these words in mind, and protect the rich biodiversity of our planet while contemplating the ways that individuals and institutions can better mitigate their impacts on the environment. At JUST Capital, we’ve surveyed more than 81,000 Americans over the past four years, to better understand what matters most to them when it comes to just business behavior.

Arizona Public Service: State-Regulated Utility or 'Political Machine'? (Phoenix New Times) The people running every Arizonan's favorite utility, Arizona Public Service, are actually admirably creative political strategists if playing dirty is your thing. During the 2014 and 2016 election cycles, top executives at APS and parent company Pinnacle West plotted smear campaigns, attempted to feed questions to local media, and even scrutinized the Facebook profile photos of their preferred candidates, caches of documents released in recent weeks by the utility show.  

SMUD, PG&E study electric long-haul trucking future (Sacramento Business Journal)  Utilities along the entire West Coast are joining together to create an electric highway to power long-haul shipping from Mexico to Canada along Interstate 5. The effort includes Sacramento Municipal Utility District and PG&E Corp. (NYSE: PCG), which with other utilities are preparing to install electric vehicle charging infrastructure for trucks to improve air quality and efficiency on the busy shipping corridor. 

Bloomberg plugs US funding gap for UN climate body (Climate Home News)  Michael Bloomberg is contributing $5.5 million to the UN climate negotiations budget, to fill the gap left by the US administration. The media mogul and former New York mayor made the payment on top of $4.5m last year, in a show of support for international cooperation on climate change. Under president Donald Trump, the US is lagging behind its expected contributions to UN Climate Change – although Congress saved some funding from the axe. 

How wind and solar became America's cheapest energy source (CBS News) The price of renewable energy has been dropping exponentially over the past decade—and shows no sign of reversing. In most of the U.S., it's now become cheaper to build a new solar or wind farm than to keep an existing coal plant running. Part of the reason is better technology—solar panels and wind turbines have gotten more effective at generating power. 

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