Abstract
How does a utility with an annual budget of nearly $5 billion, providing services to 1.5 million electric customers and over 680,000 water customers and covering an area of 465 square miles, make sure that it is serving its customers equitably? That is the question that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) Board of Water and Power Commissioners set out to answer when it adopted the Equity Metrics Data Initiative (EMDI) in August of 2016. In this chapter, we will share our very own journey into sustainability as a municipal utility, while highlighting the importance of equity as the ubiquitous core value of our business practices that drives our commitment to sustainability and customer service. Our focus on equity also necessitates some tradeoffs, and these, too, are discussed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For more information on environmental justice and sustainability, see Refs. [<CitationRef CitationID="CR8" >8</Citation Ref>, <CitationRef CitationID="CR9" >9</Citation Ref>].
- 2.
Personal communication, 1 December 2017.
- 3.
Personal communication, 1 December 2017.
References
“Census Bureau Reports at Least 350 Languages Spoken in U.S. Homes,” United States Census Bureau Press Release, https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-185.html, Release Number: CB15-185, 3 3 November 2015. Accessed 25 January 2018.
Galperin, Ron, “Owner-Occupied Housing, 2015,” EconomyPanel LA, Los Angeles City Controller, http://www.lacontroller.org/economypanel_la. Accessed 25 January 2018.
“Quick Facts, Los Angeles City, California,” United States Census Bureau, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/losangelescitycalifornia/PST045216. Accessed 25 January 2018.
“Census Bureau Reports at Least 350 Languages Spoken in U.S. Homes,” United States Census Bureau Press Release, https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-185.html, Release Number: CB15-185, 3 November 2015. Accessed 25 January 2018.
“Quick Facts, Los Angeles City, California,” United States Census Bureau website, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/losangelescitycalifornia/PST045216. Accessed 25 January 2018.
“Less Than High School,” Mapping L. A., http://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/education/less-than-high-school/neighborhood/list/, Los Angeles Times, June 2010. Accessed 25 January 2018.
“LADWP Equity Metrics Data Initiative Report,” www.ladwp.com/equitymetrics, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, 1 August 2017, p. 22.
“From the Street: Civic Epistemologies of Urban Climate Change,” by M. Mendez in Spatializing Politics: Essays on Power and Place, Harvard University Press (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9781934510469)
“Assessing local climate action plans for public health co-benefits in environmental justice communities,” by M. Mendez in Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability (https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cloe20)
“Additional Proposed Equity Metrics for Considerations (Executive Summary),” www.ladwp.com/equitymetrics, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, December 2016.
“CalEnviroScreen,” https://oehha.ca.gov/calenviroscreen, California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA). Accessed 25 January 2018.
“California Standard Practice Manual: Economic Analysis of Demand-Side Programs and Projects,” California Public Utilities Commission, October 2001. p. 18.
Drehobl, Ariel and Ross, Lauren. “Lifting the High Energy Burden in America’s Largest Cities: How Energy Efficiency Can Improve Low Income and Underserved Communities,” American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, April 2016. pp. 9, 13.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank LADWP’s staff, management, and counsel for the work they put in to developing the equity metrics. LADWP communications staff were supported by Susan Campos and Brad Kane. The authors would also like to thank Maria Sharma, Aditya Sharma, Carolyn Casavan, and the LADWP communications team for their support in preparing this chapter. The website for equity metrics is www.ladwp.com/equitymetrics.
Author Profiles
Nancy Sutley
Sutley is LADWP’s Chief Sustainability Officer. Sutley oversees LADWP’s energy efficiency, water conservation, environmental affairs, electrification of the transportation network, and the LaKretz Innovation Campus. Sutley served as Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality from 2009 to 2014. Under Sutley, the Council on Environmental Quality played a central role in shepherding the Obama Administration’s signature environmental accomplishments. Sutley was one of the chief architects of President Obama’s June 2013 Climate Action Plan to reduce carbon pollution, prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change, and lead international efforts to address climate change. Prior to her appointment as Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, Sutley was the Deputy Mayor for Energy and Environment for the City of Los Angeles, California, under Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. She represented Los Angeles on the Board of Directors for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. She served on the California State Water Resources Control Board from 2003–2005. Sutley also was Energy Advisor for California Governor Gray Davis and Deputy Secretary for policy and intergovernmental relations at the California EPA from 1999 to 2003. During the administration of President Clinton, Sutley worked for the US Environmental Protection Agency as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Regional Administrator in San Francisco and Special Assistant to the Administrator in Washington, D.C. Sutley received her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and her Master of Public Policy degree from Harvard University.
William Funderburk
Funderburk is an environmental lawyer with a keen understanding of how to deal with the critical issues that face utilities today. A key figure in Los Angeles, Funderburk has served as the Vice President of the Board of Water and Power Commissioners at LADWP since 2013. He is managing partner of Castellon & Funderburk LLP in Los Angeles, which he co-founded in 1999. Funderburk is known for being a visionary when it comes to sustainability, renewables, clean tech, water quality, and equity. Funderburk introduced the Equity Metrics Data Initiative at LADWP and continues to play a key role in its implementation. He has published various articles regarding California stormwater regulations, clean power and distributed generation, Superfund reform, and insurance recovery for environmental liabilities. He is also a much sought-after speaker on environmental compliance. Funderburk is a member of the California State Bar and District of Columbia Bar. He graduated from Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Engineering and Applied Science and from Georgetown University Law Center with a JD degree. He was born in Washington, D.C., and lives in Los Angeles, California, with his wife and two daughters.
John Chen
Chen has worked for LADWP for over 27 years. He started working as a student engineer and held various technical and senior management positions at the company overseeing rates and retail contracts, telecommunication networks, marketing and customer services, and economic development. He is currently the Director of LADWP’s Corporate Performance Office.
Chen served as a member of Mayor’s Economic Development Cabinet, a member of the Citywide Los Angeles River Revitalization Task Force, and a member of Board of Governors for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation. He is currently the acting President of the Management Employee Association at LADWP. He was one of the founding members that purchased the property on behalf of LADWP in creating the LA Cleantech Center. Chen led the consortium of academic institutions from USC, UCLA, and Caltech, along with LADWP, that applied and won the $120 million smart grid grant from the Department of Energy. He has a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, a master’s degree in Power Engineering, and an MBA from the University of Southern California.
David Jacot, P.E.
Jacot oversees all aspects of LADWP’s offerings and strategies designed to overcome market barriers to the comprehensive adoption of energy efficiency by LADWP’s customers, as well as the implementation of LADWP’s class-leading water conservation and efficiency programs. Jacot also oversees the integration of water and energy efficiency program delivery across LADWP’s service territory as well as through a nation-leading joint program partnership with the natural gas utility serving Los Angeles, the Southern California Gas Company. Jacot has a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Oklahoma and a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, as well as 15 years of experience in designing high-performance building systems, modeling building energy usage, and managing cost-effective and investment-grade energy efficiency programs.
Maria Sison-Roces
Sison-Roces serves as a Utility Services Manager for LADWP’s Office of Sustainability. Sustainability, integrated reporting, ordinance compliance, and cross-disciplinary engagement are the focus of her work experiences in the last 5 years. Sison-Roces manages LADWP’s compliance with the existing building energy and water efficiency ordinance and environmentally preferable purchasing ordinance. She is also responsible for developing and implementing green initiatives to elevate employee awareness on sustainability. In 2016, Sison-Roces led cross-functional efforts to achieve LEED Gold Certification for LADWP’s headquarters in Downtown Los Angeles. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in European languages from the University of the Philippines, a master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of La Verne, and a sustainability certificate from the University of California, Los Angeles. Sison-Roces also serves as co-chair for the Publicly Owned Utilities Working Group and P198 Strategic Sustainability Science for the Electric Power Research Institute’s Energy Sustainability Interest Group.
Company Profile
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is the largest municipal utility in the United States and the third largest utility in California. LADWP serves 680,000 water customers and 1.5 million electric customers. LADWP has over 7,880 MW of generation capacity from a diverse mix of energy sources including renewable energy (29%), natural gas (34%), nuclear (9%), large hydroelectric (3%), coal (19%), and unspecified sources (6%). The first California utility to reach 20% renewable energy in 2010, LADWP is on track to meet the state-mandated requirement of 33% renewables by 2020. LADWP is committed to obtaining 15% of projected power needs in 2020 from energy efficiency, which means that almost half of the electric supply in Los Angeles in 2020 will come from renewable resources. Increasing renewable energy, replacement of coal, infrastructure reliability investments, ramping up energy efficiency, and other demand-side programs are critical and concurrent strategies being undertaken by LADWP. In 2016, LADWP’s revenues were $4.7 billion, and they employed approximately 9,700 employees.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sutley, N., Funderburk, W., Chen, J., Jacot, D., Sison-Roces, M. (2019). The Third “E”: LADWP’s Commitment to Equity Ensures First-Rate Service to All. In: Fox, J., Scott, M. (eds) Sustainable Electricity II. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95696-1_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95696-1_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-95695-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-95696-1
eBook Packages: EnergyEnergy (R0)