Our Climate Transition Plan

We refreshed our Climate Transition Plan (CTP) in 2024. This is a forward-looking disclosure, setting out:

• our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets
• how we plan to achieve net zero by 2050
• the actions we’re taking to get there
• where we need support from others

We were one of the first companies to publish a CTP – in June 2022 – which was supported by over 98% of shareholders at our 2022 Annual General Meeting (AGM). In May 2024, we published our second CTP, which was supported by 99% of shareholders at our 2024 AGM. Since then, we’ve engaged extensively with investors and wider stakeholders on our CTP and have matured our approach in several areas, including:  

• setting near-term climate targets to align with the Science Based Targets initiative’s (SBTi) 1.5°C pathway
• broadening our scenario analysis to cover upstream Scope 3 emissions and evolving our procurement strategy with the aim of driving emissions reductions through our supply chains
• integrating our GHG emissions reduction targets throughout our business, embedding into financial planning processes, performance management and governance structures, and continuing to be transparent on our progress

We will continue to ensure our CTP is up to date and refreshed. We plan to update it at least every three years.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions

Our biggest contribution to reducing GHG emissions, both across society and in terms of our own emissions, is what we do to enable the transportation and distribution of cleaner forms of energy into homes and businesses in the regions where we operate. This requires a fundamental upgrade of our electricity and gas networks at a pace and scale not seen for decades. We’re delivering these upgrades today in England and Wales in the UK, and in New York and New England in the US. We aim to balance the need for clean energy and affordability. 

Beyond this, we’re committed to reducing our Scope 1, 2 and 3 GHG emissions. We believe this refreshed CTP sets out a credible pathway to achieving our science-based climate targets, but we can’t achieve all of this on our own. The majority of our businesses are regulated utilities, meaning that appropriate regulatory funding for the specific actions we take, such as leak-prone pipe replacement, fleet electrification, SF6 leak repairs and customer energy-efficiency programmes, is key. Alongside this, we recognise the importance of working with our supply chain and other stakeholders to create partnerships to accelerate innovation and uptake of technologies. 
 

Policy and regulatory dependencies

In this CTP, we also set out the policy and regulatory dependencies we need in the future in order to make investments to support the decarbonisation of the energy sector as well as help reduce our own emissions. For example, we will need planning and permitting changes in the UK and US, as well as policies to further promote energy efficiency and the use of low-carbon fuels in the US. Like most organisations, without support from our policymakers and regulators, delivering our emissions reductions will be challenging.  

Our projected range of emissions to reach net zero

The charts below detail the projected range of GHG emissions reductions to 2050 across Scopes 1, 2 and 3, with the key actions we’re taking over the short, medium and long term to achieve our targets.  

We acknowledge that each scenario is unique, and there may be instances where achieving our targets is not feasible. It's crucial to recognise that failures or delays in policy implementation, regulatory changes, and other dependencies can significantly impact our ability to meet these targets. We’re committed to decarbonising our operations across all significant emission areas.

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We will continue to prioritise emissions reductions; we do not plan to use carbon offsetting to meet our near-term Science Based Targets and will only aim to support a limited amount of carbon offsetting outside of our value chain if it can play a small tactical role in accelerating our emissions reduction efforts. An example of this is offsetting residual construction emissions within our UK Electricity Transmission business; something we committed to doing over our current regulatory period. We believe this approach to our long-term net zero target aligns with a key principle of the SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard in that we aim to reduce emissions across all material Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions by at least 90%, offsetting only residual, hard-to-abate emissions, which are technically infeasible to reduce further or would pass on disproportionate costs to consumers.  

Recognising that carbon offsetting projects or partnerships can play a positive role in addressing ongoing ecological crises or supporting innovative removal technologies, we will seek to only associate with initiatives that are carried out in a responsible way towards the environment and communities, as detailed in our Group Carbon Offsetting Policy. We intend to employ due diligence drawn from global benchmarks for high-integrity carbon offsetting to select projects or partnerships that we expect to deliver multiple benefits as locally to our operations or supply chain as possible.

We are taking short, medium and long term actions across our operations and value chain to reach net zero. See our Climate Transition Plan for further details. 

Find out more about about our CTP and the progress and dependencies in relation to our targets in a video with our UK Sustainability Manager, Steve Thompson, and US Environmental Director, Michael DeNoia.

Our environmental dependencies