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ESG Forum 2021
Sep 28, 2021
Good morning. I'm Jonathan Morgan, Vice President of Investor Relations at Enbridge. I'm excited to be here today to kick off our inaugural ESG Forum. It's a great opportunity to showcase our approach to ESG and how we think about energy transition. While we're coming to you virtually today, we wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the land that we operate on, lands across North America that have been stewarded by for centuries, by indigenous nations, lands that we're committed to working with indigenous nations to protect.
Also, I wanted to applaud Canada for marking its 1st National Day For Truth and Reconciliation this week on September 30. And in the U. S, Indigenous Peoples' Day, a local and state holiday on October 11. From our perspective, this is an important journey on the reconciliation path, and we are pleased to recognize both. I'll remind you that during today's materials, our remarks will refer to forward looking information, which is covered in the disclosures on the slide here.
And in terms of agenda, we'll begin with opening remarks from Al on how we're transitioning our business and differentiating our energy infrastructure. We'll follow that with a great lineup of speakers who live the topics they'll cover today, including low carbon innovation and emissions reduction, System safety, community and employee engagement and sound governance. And we'll have a Q and A session with the whole group at the end. We'll there take your questions directly. You can submit your questions using the box at the bottom of your screen.
And all told, we expect the event to be about 2.5 hours. So with that, let's get started with Al Monaco, our President and CEO.
Good morning. While at Enbridge Day in December, we'll roll out our strategic plan, Growth outlook and our guidance as we usually do at that time of the year. But today, we're hosting our first ESG Forum, And the team is looking forward to telling you our story. And these are some of the people that you don't see often I interact with you, so we're excited about that. Now the feature you see here is one of our solar self power facilities At a compressor station in Pennsylvania, it's a great example of how we're becoming a differentiated infrastructure service provider, and you'll hear that theme throughout the day.
Through leadership in ESG and Energy Transition, And that's how we'll get there. Before we get to that, I want to share our perspective on the changing energy landscape And how Enbridge is a bridge to the energy future. Now there's broad consensus that energy demand will continue to grow. And we know that economic growth and our social well-being depend on low cost, reliable and secure energy. But it's also clear we're moving to a lower carbon economy.
And we believe existing infrastructure is essential to that transition. We see ourselves as a bridge to what the future of energy will look like by leveraging our ESG capabilities for customers, Setting and achieving emissions goals, continuing to gradually transition the asset mix with the changing fundamentals And building on our early mover advantage in wind, solar, hydrogen, RNG and then CCUS. Today, you'll hear about how we see the pace of energy transition and our strategy, our ESG priorities and how we're striving To be a global leader and how we align the entire organization from the Board right through to our front lines. So here's our point of view on the energy transition. 1st, we in North America take energy for granted, But access to energy is not universal.
2,600,000,000 people, roughly 40% of the population, Don't have access to clean cooking fuel and nearly 1,000,000,000 don't have access to electricity. And we know that developing nations want the same access to energy that we have. Half of the energy consumed in China, India and Africa It's from coal and biomass, mostly wood, resulting in significant health issues. The point is that the energy transition needs to factor in energy poverty and raising everybody's standard of living While ensuring we have a sustainable planet. So society has a dual challenge.
On the one hand, population growth, urbanization and a growing middle class will drive energy demand higher, call it Anywhere from 15% to 20% over the next couple of decades. On the other hand, achieving climate goals as an imperative Requiring global policy coordination, a lot of innovation and a ton of investment. A couple of things that come out of this chart that you're looking at. First, under any scenario we see, we're going to need conventional energy For a very long time, it's not currently feasible to meet all of our energy needs with 100% renewables. We also need to ensure that energy remains affordable, reliable and secure.
Consumers will not support Significantly higher energy costs. We've seen this over and over over the decades on gasoline. And it's happening right now as natural gas prices spike in Europe. The Texas storm proved once again the importance of redundancy. In California, there's emergency requests to run gas generation at full capacity.
And we saw how the Colonial Pipeline shutdown affected people's lives even after a very short period of time. 2nd, we need to focus on all sources of reducing emissions: efficiency, conservation, New technology and carbon capture. My point is that conventional energy will need to be part of the solution In meeting energy demand and reducing emissions. And the energy industry is now firmly on that page. The fact is that energy is essential to quality of life.
And as you can see here, it's embedded And just about everything that we do day to day. The petchem sector drives many of these products, and it's 100% dependent today On conventional feedstock with no ready substitutes. While EVs will grow, and we know they will, Over 80% of crude demand actually comes from hard to abate industrial, heavy duty and transport sectors. And we know that developing countries are going to rely on conventional energy to move their economy and social well-being along. Going forward, though, conventional energy will need to be cleaner.
So emissions reductions will have to come From within the energy sector. Now the good news is that the industry has the skills, technology And the investment capacity, call it free cash flow, to make that happen. So let me put some meat on the bones on that one. Even though we're not a large emitter ourselves, we're focused on efficiency and conservation to reduce our own emissions. For example, we incentivize our 4,000,000 utility customers to reduce their consumption.
And that's how we need to look at it in every part of the energy value chain today. We're modernizing our facilities to improve energy efficiency. We've played a huge role so far in displacing coal with lower emissions natural gas and through our wind and solar farms. And related to that, reducing consumption in our pumps and compressors through solar self power. Now natural gas.
The fact of the matter is natural gas is an ideal replacement fuel, And we see it as an enabler of renewables. Renewables and natural gas can work together to provide baseload power. And gas is critical to achieving climate goals. Remember, gas has been the biggest contributor to reducing U. S.
Emissions. The fact is it can do the same around the world. There's still 2,100,000 megawatts of coal generation globally. So a lot of opportunity here to meet this dual challenge I'm talking about, pairing gas with renewables. Equally important, we can repurpose existing infrastructure to transport and store lower carbon fuels, hydrogen, RNG and carbon.
We need to recognize the U. S. And Canada's competitive advantage in providing sustainable energy To Global Markets, it's a powerful combination if you look at this chart. Massive low cost reserves, that's the yellow diamonds that you see on the Chart here. Infrastructure that's increasingly pointed to global export markets and North America's leadership in sustainability Through ESG.
And given the industry's growing commitment, the gap that you see in this chart here will get even wider because more companies Are setting net zero targets, progress on diversity, equity and inclusion and, by the way, indigenous rights And even stronger governance practices. We in North America need to embrace this energy advantage. Achieving emissions goals requires scaling low carbon energies, innovation, acceleration of renewables And particularly building out the electricity grid. But even in the IEA's base case, let's call that the steps, It's not going to be easy. Climate policies not need to be legislated, not just talked about.
Low carbon investments need to triple. Solar and wind needs to grow by about 200 gigawatts annually. RNG and Hydrogen investment needs to be seated properly today and then EV adoption to 35% of the fleet Versus 1% today. So look, everybody is motivated to see all of that happen. But it's going to require an unprecedented level of investment and coordination globally.
We actually see this not so much as a challenge, but as a huge opportunity to diversify and grow our business Because our existing assets are going to be critical to enabling this transition. So let me speak for a minute to our transition strategy. If you go back in history from a single crude oil pipeline, we actually began transitioning our asset mix in 1996 By acquiring then Consumers Gas, our view was that gas would be a key source of fuel in the future. It turns out we were right about that. We followed that up by acquiring Spectra, and today our gas business spans the continent.
Now 2 decades ago, we also had a view that renewables would be a big part of the supply mix someday. Actually, we were wrong about that. It happened sooner than we thought. But we invested early, and today, we have a fully capable renewables platform, Including offshore wind in Europe, 29 utility scale projects in all. We're now creating optionality in low carbon energy in the same way.
We're well ahead of the curve on solar power, Green hydrogen, RNG, we're a natural player in carbon capture and blue hydrogen. Our goal really is to build out this renewable and low carbon platform, and that will provide us with a new source of growth well into the future. So now let me explain how we see this happening. Today, we're the largest infrastructure player in North America. That's pretty clear.
Our footprint connects supply to the best energy markets and the largest demand centers. Our gas business serves roughly 185,000,000 people. Liquid speeds 25% of North American demand, And we're expanding our connections to global markets through export capabilities in the U. S. Gulf Coast and in Western Canada.
And then there's the renewables platform that I mentioned. But it's really this picture here That represents our bridge to the energy future through what we call a 2 pronged approach. 1st pronged, our conventional demand pull assets Our ideally positioned to grow and thrive in any transition scenario that we can see. Each of our businesses As embedded growth for at least the next 2 decades, modernizing our systems, expanding conduits and investing in new export infrastructure, And we all know how difficult it is to build new infrastructure today. 2nd prong, those businesses are also developing Transition strategies.
There is no doubt that our transportation and storage assets will be part of a lower carbon economy. And we're leveraging those assets to grow our low carbon positions. So in the end, our future is characterized by opportunity on these Two fronts, capitalizing on conventional energy growth that will be there and while that's happening, extending those businesses To low carbon growth. So here's how we're strengthening our ability to succeed in the energy transition. Going back, we built our first wind farm in Saskatchewan in 2002.
And at that time, it was a 0.5 megawatt facility. Today, you're looking at 12 to 15 megawatt turbines. Since then, we've invested about $8,000,000,000 in renewables. Now at the same time, we were ceding the low cost options to grow new energy technologies in the same way With prudent early investments in hydrogen and RNG. Today, we've announced a dedicated New Energies team, we call it NET, Under Matthew Ackman, alongside our Renewables business.
The NET team is going to coordinate They'll focus centrally on R and D And develop partnerships with key industry players that give us access to technology and complementary assets. On that front, we made early progress by partnering with Svante and Walker on CCUS and RNG. We've now landed 2 new partnerships, which we're really excited about. An MoU with Shell, where we'll work on lower carbon opportunities together, That will include hydrogen, green and blue, renewables as well as carbon capture opportunities across North America. And with Vanguard today, we'll connect 8 RNG facilities to our pipes in the Midwest and U.
S. Northeast, And there's plenty of expansion potential on that one. With that backdrop and the transition, let's get to our ESG priorities. Now no secret that ESG is a key factor in how stakeholders evaluate us today. Customers, communities, regulators, employees and, of course, shareholders.
Capital is flowing to companies that demonstrate ESG performance, And it's moving away from those that don't. Now while ESG is getting a lot of attention today, We've been focused on it well before this acronym was coined. It's part of our DNA and how we manage the business and allocate capital. And here's how we've internalized ESG day to day. Most important, I would say, we see ESG as an enabler of execution on strategy, just the same as we see technology in developing our people.
So it's table stakes really for strategy. ESG drives how we operate and maintain our assets. For example, we reserve capital out of free cash first for maintenance and integrity spending, and we spent $6,000,000,000 Over the last 4 years, it's the lens by which we engage communities and energize our workforce, And we see it as a competitive differentiator with our customers. Finally, even though we're ahead of the pack on ESG, Today, we're determined to get better. This slide that you see here highlights our differentiated approach, And it links to UN Sustainability Goals.
When you really get down to it, the infrastructure business requires public trust in what we're doing. That will deliver energy safely and reliably and protect the environment. Our goal is to be world class on safety and integrity management. The public expects nothing less from us. We use what's called a life cycle approach to build community relationships over time, Not just showing up when we need something, but engaging through the life of a project.
We build trust in our workforce through diversity, Inclusion and we have strong Board oversight, risk management and transparency is critical to governance. Today, the team will illustrate how we're setting ourselves apart in these areas. Now one recent investment is a great example, which is the Ingleside Export Energy Center. And it illustrates quite well how we're differentiating ourselves. Now firstly, we the assets against a range of energy transition scenarios before we acquired them.
We concluded Its competitive position and export focus make it a resilient business and provides tremendous upside. And that it would be key to a key to an export point to provide sustainable energy to the rest of the world. And its location on the Gulf Gives us huge optionality for hydrogen, ammonia and carbon capture, again, building options in a prudent way. And it more than passed the test on our net zero commitment. In fact, it's a brand new facility, So we're designed to minimize emissions in the first place, but we're also developing a 60 megawatt on-site solar farm That meets our own power needs and then more.
That means we'll be net 0 on Scope 12 on this facility, but it will also contribute To Scope 3 reductions. Now on the S, Line 3 is another good example of applying state of the art design and construction And management are the right of way to minimize our impact. We're very proud of the relationship as well That we built with indigenous groups across Canada and the United States through this process. All of that Made Line 3 a better project, a world class project. How we invest capital in the business It's a very important test of our ESG commitment and another way that we internalize it.
First, we see We use ESG Lens to assess the true cost of capital and the right return threshold in this environment. So typically, for new investments, we assess strategic fit and returns against our risk adjusted hurdle rate. Nothing new there in particular. We look at risks like capital, operating costs, volume and price. But today, our hurdle rate also reflects the broader public policy permitting issues and opposition that we face in our business, And we incorporate the price of carbon into our economics.
Strategically, though, we look at how we capitalize on Energy transition opportunities. And we stress test projects against a range of supply demand scenarios. This discipline gives us confidence that we'll generate value from capital we put in the ground today and that our investments will meet our expectations. So here's what our ESG performance looks like up to this point. On the E, We delivered industry leading safety results.
Now we haven't always got things right. We've learned from incidents in the past. We've invested in renewables and improved our carbon footprint. On the S, we've diversified our workforce, supported indigenous businesses And improved engagement with communities. On the G, we've tied ESG goals to compensation, And we have strong Board diversity, oversight and independence.
That record has earned us very high ratings ahead of our peers. Even so though, we continue to raise the bar to achieve global ESG leadership. That's why we've set new ambitious goals to get us there. On the E, net zero emissions by 2,050 With an interim intensity goal of 35% by 2,030. We also introduced new metrics to track Scope 3 performance.
That's new this year. On the S, We're embedding new D and I goals across the business and now to our supply chain. And on the G newborn diversity goals. Setting these targets is important, but what's critical is hitting them. So here's how we're going to get there.
The most important element we believe of getting to the goals is through organizational alignment from the Board right through to the frontline. Everybody needs to be pulling in the same direction to make this happen. Our team reviews progress on the goals at management meetings. The Board monitors progress, and each of our Board committees oversees specific areas of ESG. Our business units are implementing ESG action plans, which form part of our scorecards and link to compensation.
And reporting aligns with global standards. This year, we've issued $3,000,000,000 And ESG linked debt, the latest bond offering a couple of weeks ago, which was well subscribed. It's another great example of how we're integrating ESG into the day to day business at Enbridge and holding ourselves to account. Now final point. As I alluded to earlier, we haven't been perfect on everything, and we don't have all the answers yet.
Well, we're keen to learn how we can do better. So we welcome your input, and I look forward to your questions during our Q and A session At the end of today's event, I'll now turn it over to the team. Now these people are the ones driving our leading ESG Chief position and how we'll get who after a short video is going to start with how we arrived at our emissions goals, the modeling we went through To actually achieve to set them in the 1st place and then how we're going to achieve them. So we'll now turn it to the video.
At Enbridge, we're committed to bridging society to a lower emissions future. We've set goals to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2,050 and reduce our emissions intensity 35% by 2,030. To get there, we're embracing new technologies, investing in new State of the art systems that lower our energy usage and building solar self Power projects along our liquids and gas pipelines. We're also lowering the carbon intensity The energy we deliver by expanding offshore wind generation in Europe and leveraging our existing pipelines To pioneer cleaner energy sources, including renewable natural gas and green hydrogen, at Enbridge, We deliver the energy that fuels quality of life, and we're actively seeking new lower carbon ways to deliver it.
That video clearly conveys the level of focus and enthusiasm throughout our teams And across the business to lower our emissions, while also helping our customers reduce their footprint. Over the next few minutes, I'll provide some Color on the foundational thinking behind our emissions goals and the analysis that went into developing both the targets And the pathways designed to achieve them over time. While our goals and plans are clearly forward looking, I think it's valuable to provide some insights into the work behind our targets. I'll also speak to our early performance And how we're positioning the company to support lower societal scope 3 emissions through the energy transition. Focus on ESG isn't new for our company.
Reducing our Environmental footprint has been at the forefront of our sustainability reporting and operational performance plans for many years. In terms of performance, we've set and met greenhouse gas emissions targets before, and we've been committed to sustaining this progress. In 2018, we began a deliberate approach to test the resilience of our assets under various climate scenarios. Our 2019 climate report aligned to the task force for climate related financial disclosure pillars provided early insights. It was in this TCFD report that we committed to establishing next generation emissions targets.
While ambition often leads when it comes to long term goal setting, it was important that our goals be credible and aligned with global efforts to address the climate challenge. We landed on the net zero concept early in the process, aligning with the ambitions of the Paris Agreement. And we knew we needed an interim target to demonstrate accountability and to ensure we were moving in the right direction. In developing our approach, we needed ambition to be balanced with achievability. To that end, we spent the better part of 2 years dimensioning Pathways to net 0, including pace and potential financial trade offs.
We engaged the whole company, establishing an emission steering committee to help guide our strategy and testing our approach several times with our Board. We worked with each business unit to develop a robust list of emissions reductions opportunities. We conducted innovation challenges To solicit new ideas, engage with stakeholders to better understand the role of the midstream sector in achieving climate goals and modeled multiple scenarios with wide ranging assumptions about future technology and innovation, policy, carbon pricing forecast And capital allocation decisions. Ultimately, we gained confidence that net zero from our operations was achievable under a variety of scenarios. And this work allowed us to land on a framework, pathways that map to our goals over time.
Now these pathways are likely familiar to many at this point and outlined at a high level on this slide. There are really three areas we see delivering the biggest results. Modernization is really about getting more efficient. When we change out equipment, we're replacing with newer with lower emissions technology. For example, existing gas compressors are being replaced with more efficient gas or electric compression.
This work is built into our business plans and we estimate these investments alone can reduce our compression emissions by 25% And a mission and innovation will unlock a growing opportunity set. Our technology labs partnered with the business units Look at ways to optimize our energy use and that's helping drive our scope 2 emissions lower. We're leveraging machine learning and predictive analytics to drive efficiency And emissions reductions across our system. In terms of procuring low emissions electricity, well, this pathway combines a variety of initiatives aimed at greening electricity grids and leveraging our capabilities across our businesses. Matthew will talk more about solar cell power in a bit, But we've put into service several projects with more under construction and on the horizon in both the liquids and gas transmission businesses.
We think this strategy could potentially contribute an estimated 800,000 tonnes of emissions reduction. And since overall emissions decrease as the emissions intensity of electricity grids improves, we're also advocating for efficient and effective policies that support cleaner power across our system. As for nature based solutions, this is likely a smaller contributor among our primary pathways. Still, we see tangible benefits associated with the use of nature based offsets. Well conceived projects can provide real economic And environmental benefits to our community and indigenous partners.
And importantly, they're a great tool for enhancing biodiversity proximate to our operations. It's early days, but we're already making good progress against our 2,030 interim target. You can see a list of things we're doing to make this happen on the slide. Ultimately, the path to 0 won't be linear, which this chart could imply. We're still putting all the architecture in place to ensure we meet our targets.
Our goals have accelerated organizational alignment, providing a framework for more directly connecting performance, financing and investment decisions with ESG. And our business units have developed multiyear emissions reduction plans, which they're implementing. In the near term, Emissions may temporarily rise with recovering economic activity, but the overall trend is going down and towards our goals. One additional observation. As policy and technology advance and we make progress against our interim target, We'll continue to recalibrate to ensure we're maintaining momentum toward net 0.
We see significant potential to help our customers upstream and downstream reduce their emissions, and we're taking action. We're reducing Scope 3 emissions as we diversify our assets with continued investment in renewables both onshore and offshore, building on a history of investments going back 2 decades. We're expanding expertise in low carbon innovation with disciplined investments in hydrogen, Renewable natural gas and CCUS that leverage our existing assets and we continue to advance demand side management Strategies at our utility that since 1995 have reduced emissions by nearly 55,000,000 tonnes. Now understandably, when it comes to climate and emissions goals, there's interest in looking beyond operational Scope 1 and 2 emissions and tackling Scope 3. We've been tracking and reporting on a subset of Scope 3 emissions for some time, Grid loss, employee air travel and the emissions associated with natural gas use at our utility.
And while there continues to be a lack of science based guidance regarding Scope 3 in the context of midstream operations, We haven't stood still awaiting a road map. We believe our customers will increasingly differentiate oil and natural gas on an emissions basis. So we've started tracking and reporting on the emissions intensity of the energy we deliver. This year, for the first time, we included this detail in our We're also tracking how our investments help to reduce third party emissions. These metrics will give better line of sight to our efforts to help reduce help our customers reduce their emissions.
And over time, Bill also demonstrate how our shippers are reducing their emissions while providing insight into the impact of diversification on our own emissions To conclude, our team is excited about where we're headed. We believe that ambition Matched with Achievable Pathways is galvanizing the business to prioritize and build plans to deliver on these commitments while providing stakeholders with a sense of where we're headed as a company. With that, I'll turn it over to Michel to discuss this in the context of our operations after a short video on our approach to technology and innovation.
Putting more and effort into innovation technology is like when we all had To move from the paper map into Google map, that's what we're creating here today.
That's one of the best things is bringing both business And technology folks cohabitating in one place, focused on a specific problem and
We are embedded into the team. We are part of the team. So it's about shared ownership. That's been the game changer.
We use agile methods. It's a framework that breaks complex problems into small manageable tasks.
These products are solving difficult problems at Enbridge, and we're solving them fast. We're solving them in 12 weeks rather
The value of that is that we can quickly identify what doesn't work with our users, Throw those out so we can focus on what works and develop the right solutions the first time.
Between innovation, being faster, agile methodology, yes, it does make us a leader in the industry.
Well, thanks, Pete. And that's a great video on the lab. It's been such a game changer for us, and I'll give you some examples of that a little later on. 1st and foremost, though, safety. Beyond thinking of safety as the top priority, it is a core value for us, Protecting our people, the communities in which we operate and the environment is a serious responsibility shared by everyone at Enbridge.
And it is inextricably linked to our responsibility to deliver energy to millions of people who rely on what we do. We've not been perfect. Our mistakes and incidents have shaped who we are and where we're going. Central to our mindset and safety culture though It's an unshakable belief that all safety incidents can be prevented. That's why we're always driving towards a goal of 0 incidents.
To get to 0, we focus on leadership, world class expertise, Tried and tested risk processes and frameworks, and we seek out organizational alignment. Everyone owns and leads on safety. We set clear expectations for ourselves and we hold each other accountable. That includes a collective sense of chronic unease. And what that means is always asking questions, always asking what if And with that drive to continuously improve.
Protecting water, land, wildlife, Habitat and Communities is central to the way we develop, design, construct and operate our assets. And through the decades, we've become more sophisticated in our techniques on this front. We work closely with regulators and communities To ensure proper restoration and enhancement of land and wetlands impacted by our operations, our work with the Williams Lake First Nation is an example of how we can get this done while supporting local businesses and communities. There, we work to maintain native species of trees and shrubs and restored wetlands in an area of our project work. We lead the way in emergency response capability.
We have expertise and equipment staged across our systems, And we practice response regularly and rigorously, partnering with local first responders and community organizations. Our approach to system safety and integrity is forged through the toughest lessons of our past. We embed safety criteria and best practices through every stage of the asset life cycle, from design Through construction, operation and decommissioning, the first layer of defense, of course, Is and must be to prevent incidents from happening in the first place. To that end, in pipeline integrity, we have mature Industry leading inspection and verification processes. We use the best available technology, and we are confident we have the best expertise in the industry.
We're very proud of our standing amongst our peers and regulators as a thought leader an innovator in pipeline integrity. Our pipeline control centers are staffed by highly trained capable operators using world class technology And our state of the art monitoring and leak detection systems detect problems early, a key factor in averting and minimizing the impact of an incident. In the rare event an incident does occur, we're ready with the comprehensive emergency response capability I mentioned earlier. Now let me give you a sense of the scale of our activities and investment in assessing and verifying the safety of our systems. Across Enbridge, since 2017, we've invested over $6,000,000,000 in the fitness of our systems.
We've conducted 135,000 pipeline inspections that includes 1600 in line inspections And about 8,000 integrity digs. All of this work provides us with a rich data map of the condition of our systems, Which feeds back into our integrity programs to ensure a cycle of continuous improvement. The graph on the right Shows how we clearly stack up as one of the industry leaders amongst our peers in the U. S. Liquids Pipeline Sector.
Nowhere is our commitment to safety and the environment on clear display than on Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac in Michigan. We inspect and maintain the lines along the lakebed of the Straits directly using divers, Using remote operated vehicles and with in line inspection tools at a frequency far beyond what's required by regulation. We have an extensive maritime operation. We have radar as well as infrared and high definition cameras working in conjunction with patrol boats On the water surrounding the Straits, we use these systems and our people on the water to directly engage with all large Vessels traversing the straits to ensure their anchors are properly stowed. Additionally, Enbridge is committed to make a safe pipeline even safer by agreeing to advance and construct at our own cost a state of the art tunnel That would contain the pipeline underneath the Straits and allow space for other utilities to the benefit of the state of Michigan.
Now I've shared with you our safety philosophy and framework, given you a glimpse of the extent of our investment in activities. But in the end, none of that matters if we don't get the results. We hold ourselves accountable, and we keep people and system safety front and center at Enbridge. Critically, this starts at the very top of the organization where Al Monaco chairs our Operations and Integrity Committee. At this table, we examine our safety performance as the critical business metrics they are.
We conduct deep dives On our near misses or incidents, we examine and learn from industry events. We ensure and test that as an organization, We maintain an intense focus on both the current state and our expectations for our safety culture. And we initiate and ensure a deep understanding of audits, reviews and findings of our safety programs and processes By third party experts with a constant eye on continuous improvement. You don't see zeros here, though. While we're proud of our progress, Our work is certainly not done.
Pipelines are among the safest means to transport energy. However, in those rare events, when we get it wrong, the impact to those who depend on that energy And to the communities in which we operate can be significant. On the liquids side, as I've already referred to, A failure in system safety can lead to leaks with impacts to the environment and the resources that our communities rely on. On the natural gas side, a flaw in our system integrity can lead to ruptures of our gas Pipeline and very often with that, a fire or explosion. So there are real consequences.
To that end, our gas transmission system experienced several ruptures over the last few years. That Anything like this could occur is unacceptable to every last employee of Enbridge. It's unacceptable to our regulators, Our customers and most importantly, it is unacceptable to the communities in which we operate. We immediately brought in industry experts to assess and review the strength and robustness of our integrity programs. Anything other than industry leading was unacceptable.
And quite frankly, we wanted to reset just what industry leading looks like. While we relied heavily on external parties to help us identify our gaps And work with us to set a vision for where we needed to go with our integrity work. What we quickly realized is there are no better experts Anywhere in pipeline integrity than those in Enbridge and our Liquids pipeline group. They, of course, had been through their own journey Several years ago, when we had a terrible spill into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan that forever changed how we think about and manage system safety at Enbridge. Our organization learned so much from that as to what it truly takes to be world class and industry leading.
And so many of those people stepped in to help support the framing and execution of what's now gas transmission's journey In a manner that I believe just could not have been achieved but for the strength of the entire organization. And we put our money where our mouth is. This sort of effort requires significant investment, both financial and organizational. We focus first on the integrity of our pipeline systems. To assess that, we have in line inspection tools or what are known Smart pigs, there's actually a photo of 1 at the bottom of this screen that's being launched in North Dakota.
We send these tools Through our pipeline systems and they use sensors to take readings of the metallurgy, it requires Significant logistical work and personnel to safely launch and receive these tools and then, of course, massive engineering intensity Around analyzing and assessing the data and taking any necessary follow-up actions, including digging up the pipe To take a closer look at anything we consider to be an anomaly of concern, and let's be clear, we take a very conservative approach to what concerns us. The inspections of the anomalies found by what we call smart pigs are analyzed and then Determinations are made what, if any, repair is required. In some cases, we'll replace entire sections of the pipeline to ensure that it's safe. We also have tools that look for movement in the pipeline. So they basically have GPS data that tracks the position of the And it looks to see if it's shifted at all from the previous run.
This is very critical for our geohazard work. We have tools that go through and look for dents, that go through and look for different types of corrosion, manufacturing defects, things like that. So multiple tools running through our system looking for every possible threat we can think of. Our gas transmission system has been inspected end to end, the equivalent of almost 1.5 times since 2017. And I think you saw on one of my earlier slides how Enbridge leads the industry in inspecting our liquid system.
It bears repeating that all of this work requires a massive logistical effort To ensure that we are running the tools, getting the data, assessing the data and going in and looking at the system to ensure it's safe While minimizing our impact on our customers, be they local distribution companies, end users, energy producers or refiners, We know that our system being safe is fundamental to our lessons to operate. What we have set for ourselves across Enbridge is a mandate that there will never be any group that sets a higher bar Or challenges us more on proving out the facts, data, engineering analysis and best practices to demonstrate safety than us. We are and will continue to be our own toughest critics. In doing that, we know with confidence That once we've proven it to ourselves, we will be able to demonstrate to our regulators, our customers and most importantly, the communities in which we operate That we are safe. With that, we know that our customers and the communities we serve also expect us to deliver a reliable source We've been investing and modernizing our system in all of our business units.
Our Line 3 replacement project On the Liquids Pipeline side, not only utilize the latest design and construction techniques and standards, ensuring the safety of the system, It will also improve our efficiency and our throughputs. Another benefit is that with Type being new, while it will continue to be thoroughly and rigorously inspected, we don't expect that we'll need to go in and dig up as many potential anomalies. We estimate that over 15 years, this will eliminate the need for some 26,000 Integrity digs. And that's really all part of being a good neighbor. In our utilities business, we've eliminated our Cast iron pipelines and mains, that eliminates a potential source of methane emissions, and we're continuing to upgrade and reinforce the integrity of our systems.
On the gas transmission, as we've mentioned before, we're well underway with an investment in modernizing our And each of those upgrades allows us to operate with significantly less greenhouse gas emissions. This year, we're bringing 4 new modern stations into service, replacing high emissions compression with modern, reliable Efficient gas compression. The first came into service this spring, and the other 3 will actually come into service over the next 2 to 4 weeks up in Pennsylvania. Now thanks to both our size and scale as well as the very high bar we have set, We've worked with our industry vendors to drive technical evolution and innovation. We believe it's imperative For us to continue to raise the bar in order to ensure the health of our system.
To that end, we've worked to develop next generation technology And have made material investments to ensure we have the best inspection and assessment technology at our disposal. And not only with vendors, After experiencing a geohazard or land movement related incident in Ohio in January of 2019 And then realizing a number of other pipeline operators had experienced similar failures, we pulled together and led an industry group to look at and set a standard for best practices for the industry. That's now a key document and recommendation our U. S. Regulator PHMSA is using as it develops It's regulations regarding geohazards.
Our Technology and Innovation Lab has also played a key role. Our ability to Apply machine learning and AI to the massive amounts of data we gather in regards to the health of our assets, it's just a game changer. We have several projects working their way through the lab, but one of my favorites right now is a project led by the Liquids Pipeline Group that all of our business units will benefit from. They're applying AI and machine learning to data being gathered from flying over our rights of way. A very serious threat to our pipelines Comes from 3rd party damage.
Enhanced analytics like this that assess changes to our rights of way makes a real difference. The technology lab is also an enabler for us in retraining our workforce to be able to handle this rapid move to increasing digitization And sophistication in the assets we're responsible for. Now while it doesn't mean a really good heavy duty mechanic isn't worth his or her weight in gold to us, It is about preparing our workforce for the skills they'll need in the future. Reducing our methane emissions is high priority for us, and it's part of being a responsible operator. Our commitment to 1 future is to reduce our emissions intensity to as close to 0 as possible.
We're already at less than 1%, and we're striving to go even lower. We recently installed the largest equipment health monitoring program On our existing fleet of gas compressors that solar gas turbines, a division of Caterpillar, has anywhere. This allows us to take significant steps forward in ensuring the reliability of our assets. And it also materially improves our ability to monitor and manage emissions from our fleet. This is critical for us As we move forward with our objectives regarding emissions abatement, we're also piloting some very new methane abatement technology at one of our gas transmission Stations in Weymouth, Massachusetts.
This will help us to capture methane that's vented as a part of normal compressor operations. This is considered leading edge for North America, and it's a real example of how we're challenging ourselves to completely rethink How we design, build and operate our assets with emissions management front and center. In many ways, it's about changing the way our entire workforce thinks. In the past, many of the integrity activities I mentioned would have required us To blow down or vent the natural gas in the pipeline in order to safely carry out the work. Now we make every effort to capture and recompress that methane back into the system.
Of course, there's varying degrees of regulation over these sorts of activities across North America, but our mantra in operations has become Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Let's take the extra time. Let's ensure we do this work safely and responsibly. I'd be happy to answer any of your questions later on. But for now, let me turn things over to Matthew.
Thanks, Michelle. Good morning. Together with Melanie, we'll discuss our approach to growing our new energy and renewables infrastructure. We've got a big head start with our midstream peers and are positioned to widen our lead. Our goals going forward are to further differentiate our approach to new energy delivery, while making accretive low risk investments.
Strategically speaking at the highest level, we see our assets as a platform for renewables and new energies. We have a mature and coordinated approach to development across our company and our announcement today to dedicate more resources to New energies only strengthens our execution. We're excited by the future and I'm personally Looking forward to helping us realize the opportunities ahead. I'll start this section off by touching on our low carbon portfolio And Renewables Business. Maloney will then provide some details on the new energy initiatives that are underway.
As I said, we're starting from a good spot and are already in the game here. We've got over 5 gigawatts of gross renewable capacity in operation today, both wind and solar located across Canada, the U. S. And in Europe, we built this up gradually over 20 years with a constant eye on profitability, Proving out technology and aligning our investments to our low risk model. We're taking that same approach today with new energies.
Our early investments are building capabilities and competitive position, while earning revenues that are right down our commercial fairway. We'll be moving 2.1 PJs of RNG by the end of 2023, renewable natural gas, And we produce 18,000 kilograms of hydrogen now for injection into our gas utility, But could go 10 times higher if demand is there, which we think it will be. With that, we're already eliminating about 2,000,000 tons of CO2 equivalent annually. As you're all aware, renewable power is the biggest platform for Pure 0 GHG Energy at Enbridge today. Many energy companies are just signing contracts with 3rd party renewable players for a portion of their electricity requirements.
But we stand out with our scale, Asset base and broad capabilities in developing, constructing and operating renewable power, including onshore wind and solar As well as offshore wind. As our asset base expands every year, so do our capabilities. Our development company Maple Power over in Europe is working closely with our partners to construct offshore wind projects and develop These are highly complex and large scale projects Requiring unique siting, permitting and construction expertise, along with well developed supply chains, Which we've been carefully building. And on the operations front, we operate not only for ourselves, but in many instances for our partner, CPPIB, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, we're proud of our reliability and safety records, which already rival the best in class. Offshore wind is a more recent foray, But one that's already achieved scale.
Offshore wind capacity is forecast to triple globally by 2,030, so explosive growth. Our focus has been on Europe where we see solid fundamentals, good commercial underpinnings and aggressive targets Set by government for renewables. We already have ownership interests in several operating facilities in Germany and the U. K, Are in active construction on 3 more large scale facilities with 1.4 gigawatts of capacity in France alone. Coming up right behind that, we're developing another 3 gigawatts in Europe with our partner again CPPIB.
An emerging but exciting growth opportunity set is in floating offshore wind, which has the potential to open up a vast new renewable resource. We're actively working on a pilot in a late stage in the south of France and expect to participate in an Utility Scale
During supplier and customer relationships in North America, On RNG, into biogas production or landfill gas capture and assess these opportunities for fit with our low risk commercial model. Now the technology is proven. Beyond pure fuel substitution, particularly when it reduces fugitive The 3% blend of RNG and Namely, it's a backup to intermittent renewable generation providing reliability. It's a solution to peak winter demand currently served by gas and Scale up is significant. It is an entire system as opposed to a closed loop and will provide significant learnings required to implement this in the rest of our system.
And now on to carbon capture. There's no doubt that carbon capture and storage will be imperative as
Hello, everyone. Just a reminder, we're going to get started in 1 minute. Thank you. Transition in the E portion of the ESG, we're now going Shift gears a little bit and talk about the S and the G. We have a lot to talk about on these topics as well.
And so without further ado, I'm going to turn it back to Pete Sheffield, our Chief Sustainability Officer, to talk about how we engage with stakeholders and indigenous communities.
In our business, there's no substitute for strong relationships. Long lived assets must be supported by relationships built on mutual respect and trust and established at the community level. This slide outlines our 4 pronged approach to engagement over the life cycle of our assets From project planning and build to replacement or decommissioning. It's easy to say we're committed to engagement, But getting it right is hard, resource intensive work. Establishing and maintaining a meaningful connection throughout a vast Footprint in thousands of communities is no small task.
In Minnesota alone, where construction is winding down on our Line 3 replacement, Our engagement has included over 3,500 community outreach meetings, and that's not including more than 70 public regulatory sessions. And timing is important too. Meaningful engagement at the front end lays the foundation for better outcomes. Again, on Line 3 in Minnesota, we made 320 route modifications as a direct result Of Stakeholder and Tribal Input, we secured more than 6,000 mutual agreements for land rights necessary to replace Line 3 With no imminent domain exercised on the entire project, we also secured broad community With no right of way communities opposed to Line 3, we leveraged our partnerships at the local level, leading to more than 8,500 jobs In Minnesota, more than 3 quarters of those locally sourced, and that was all on $4,000,000,000 of private investment In Minnesota's Energy Infrastructure. Now given the unique characteristics and sheer number of communities in which we operate, Our engagement model is built from the ground up, while maintaining standards of practice across the company.
This model makes sense, especially in an indigenous context. We engage with more than 300 indigenous nations and groups Canada and more than 40 federally recognized tribes in the U. S. We've been doing this long enough to understand that indigenous nations aren't just stakeholders. They have specific treaty rights.
They have specific treaty rights. And while indigenous peoples in North America share a difficult collective history, No two nations are the same. Each has unique history, traditions and culture. At Enbridge, we recognize the importance of reconciliation between indigenous nations and broader society. And we believe that companies have an active role to play.
For us, it all starts With understanding that we have more to learn and an obligation to do so. That's why All Enbridge employees, whether an engagement professional on the ground or an accountant in Houston, must complete indigenous cultural awareness training. It's simple. When you begin to understand the indigenous experience in North America, the central importance and deep connection to land And water that's embedded within indigenous values and ways of life, when you know that young children were systematically taken from their families and sent To residential schools, it starts to become clear how deeply held mistrust, anger and resentment can be. So trust and mutual respect have to be built from the ground up.
Our experience suggests that time, understanding, consistent effort and delivering on promises can bridge the trust gap. We've seen this happen firsthand. 10 First Nation leaders from Canada penned an article in the Minnesota Star Tribune inviting U. S. Nations to work with Enbridge during the permitting of Line 3.
A decade earlier, many of these same leaders I'd raised significant concerns as we look to build the Alberta Clipper project through Canada. We listened carefully, truly listened. We heard that nations wanted Enbridge to deliver more economic opportunity. They wanted their businesses and people to move up the value chain. And they wanted Enbridge to prioritize environmental and cultural protections, while also providing the training And supply chain protocols that would create opportunities for direct participation.
We committed to make this a reality and together We identified indigenous businesses, capabilities and gaps, provided specific training and overhauled our supply chain procedures To ensure that these businesses could compete for contracts, the result is reflected in our Line 3 experience on both sides of the border. Now this slide provides some of the measures of success on Line 3 in terms of job creation, economic opportunity And Land Agreements. Importantly, it also highlights Minnesota's 1st tribal cultural resources survey for the entire pipeline right of way and the tribal monitoring program that was designed for construction and overseen by the tribes. We're proud of these proof points.
At Enbridge, our values of safety, integrity, respect and inclusion are central to how we do business. By living our values, we can enrich communities, advance indigenous reconciliation, And build bridges to a more inclusive and prosperous future. Through active listening, engagement and Supporting local communities, we're forging lifelong relationships and building trust. Our Line 3 replacement achieved an unprecedented level of indigenous engagement and economic participation. And a first
I have never worked for a better company, And they put their money where their mouth is, including the tribal employment. They really are active We've recruited indigenous Native American people to work for them and to help them steer the vision.
I am very honored to work with Enbridge because they are and they do want to do it the right way. They're looking at Our culture and how to be respectful for the land and the people.
Coming from an indigenous person and viewpoint, I'm extremely proud Of the energy and the dedication that the company has put are to reconciliation. So we're really Looking to create an indigenous community within the company that makes people feel welcomed and gives An outlet to share with because it is very unique being indigenous in a company like Enbridge.
At Enbridge, It's more than just the energy we deliver. It's the energy we put in.
All of this starts to illustrate how business can help to drive societal connection and collective value. Engagement and inclusion in our operations represents just one dimension of our efforts to build sustainable And mutually beneficial relationships across our value chain. This slide captures some of the social and economic impacts of our businesses That extend well beyond our footprint with our 12,000 Enbridge employees who focus on making their communities better each and every day. As a company, We look to support our right of way communities in ways that create value for them and our business. This includes helping communities and organizations realize their goals and priorities through our employee volunteers and corporate giving.
For example, our Safe Community First Responder Grant Program helps first responders acquire new safety related equipment, Obtain professional training and deliver or receive safety education. We've directed roughly $20,000,000 through this program over the years. We're also working on making our supply chain more diverse and inclusive to further expand the benefits of our operations In the communities in which we live and work. And in many of these communities, Enbridge is among the largest taxpayers, indirectly supporting programs that benefit community Priorities more broadly. With team members across North America and linear infrastructure, which extends across thousands of communities, Being a good neighbor is central to how we live our values every day.
With that, I'll hand it over to Melissa to cover How we're engaging our employees across North America and building a more inclusive workforce.
At Enbridge, We believe that diversity drives innovation, shapes better decisions and builds resiliency. We are building a more inclusive workforce environment with more women, racial and ethnic groups, Indigenous employees, those with disabilities and veterans, and extending our diversity commitments
When we talk about really the business case for diversity inclusion, What any organization would get out of this kind of work to the point where inclusion is truly something that's
owned and championed by every individual in
Enbridge and it's embedded into our And by every individual at Enbridge, and it's embedded into our business practices and just our ways of working. And so when you look at the benefits Of a truly diverse and inclusive work environment, employees are more prone to exert that discretionary effort To help one another to show up and go above and beyond.
With a workforce that more closely reflects the communities around us, We can strengthen relationships and trust. And with a wider range of skills, voices and perspectives,
As a values driven organization, It's our values that define how we work together and engage with stakeholders. Inclusion is Core value that is important to all of us and inclusion is simply defined as everyone, An environment where all can fully contribute to innovation. As we've progressed our approach to diversity, equity and inclusion, It's important to increase its prominence, and it's now specifically called out as one of our core values. This was supported by our employees who played an important role in defining what this means at Enbridge. It is through having an inclusive workplace that we will be able to truly harness the power and maximize the value Of our diversity.
Discussing the value of diversity, equity and inclusion is not a new conversation for us. We've seen the positive impacts for our business, employees and communities we operate in by leveraging diversity of thought To drive better outcomes. Before I get to how we're embedding diversity, equity and inclusion into our business, I want to highlight how we've been living our values during this pandemic. We're all responsible for the safety of our teams, Our families, our communities, which is why we have developed industry leading COVID-nineteen safety protocols Founded on medical expert advice, our response in 2020 included quickly putting protocols in place That focused on safety, flexible work arrangements, expanding our focus on mental health And creating opportunities for our employees to support their local communities. Overall, our workplace transmission has been minimal, and at the same time, engagement has remained strong.
We've also contributed relief funding and safety equipment to local communities and frontline healthcare professionals. With increasing COVID-nineteen cases, infections and hospitalizations continuing to rise, We have implemented a new vaccine and testing policy, which includes mandatory COVID-nineteen testing For all team members who are not fully vaccinated, the mental health of our team members has been at the forefront Throughout this entire pandemic, we have taken a human centered approach. We listened, Demonstrated compassion and reinforced the criticality of well-being, and that continues. In November 2020, we announced our representation goals, which included a focus on women, Ethnic and racial groups, people with disabilities and veterans. We've been tracking goals internally and sharing transparently Through our diversity dashboard for several years now, beginning with gender, and that's expanded to reach broader diversity segments.
Our goals are important, yes, but only one part of the equation. Since joining Enbridge, I've spent time connecting with people, reviewing our strategy and progress, And I'm confident that we have the right strategy and actions that will continue to move us forward. Our diversity strategy has expanded to focus on inclusion, diversity, Equity and accessibility and is aligned around 3 goals: engage and empower employees, Embed Equity and Elevate Diverse Talent. Our strategy is enabled through the contributions of our Internal ecosystem, employee communities such as our 10 employee resource groups and other diversity, equity and inclusion Councils that make this a distributed way to drive strategy and outcomes. We also have an external ecosystem that we engage with to ensure we contribute to and learn from leading practices Such as BlackNorth, ACTUA, which is an organization that prepares youth for STEM skills with a focus on girls And our indigenous population and CEO action.
Accountability is Important. And so we've aligned achievement of our diversity goals with compensation, and they are embedded within our scorecards Used in the calculation of our short term incentive plan. This includes representation goals, Completion of core training associated with unconscious bias, anti racism and indigenous awareness, Hiring activities and leader conversations. In order to truly engage and empower our people, We focused our efforts on increasing awareness and education. In addition to formal programs, we're supporting leaders With how to engage in conversations with their teams on topics such as allyship and microaggressions.
We've also been deliberate in listening to our people. In 2020, we sought to understand the experiences Of our Black employees, we hosted focus groups which informed today our Black Equity Plan. This Black Equity Plan comprises actions focused on breaking down systemic barriers to equity And ensuring Black employees are represented across all levels. It contains specific actions related to actively Reaching out to candidates, driving equity in our talent programs and developing anti racism learning To help build allies, this plan is also shared internally for all employees to view, And we regularly provide updates to our leaders and the Board on our progress. The result of listening to our employees led to conducting focus groups with other underrepresented and well represented employee groups, And actions have continued to evolve.
Embedding equity is an ongoing focus to ensure our processes, Programs and policies are fair for all. For example, from a recruitment perspective, How we inspect our processes so that we don't leave any talent out, including Targeted recruitment strategies to increase our reach to diverse applicant pools. Hiring manager education at the Point of initiating recruitment on things such as the value of diversity and unconscious bias And ensuring job postings are in nature inclusive in language. We have embedded inclusion checkpoints In people practices such as performance management, leadership development, succession and pay. Specifically from a pay equity perspective, we are committed to ensuring employees are paid fairly.
Characteristics such as gender, disability, race, ethnicity and age are not used in determining employee compensation. We have processes in place to ensure that we meet our commitment to fair pay, and we carefully monitor this To ensure equal pay for equal work. Elevating diverse talent It's about transparently reporting our progress. That's key to understanding not only the talent we have, But also their rate of progression and how we can best support that. Our dashboard has been essential to driving action To improve representation.
A strong diverse supplier community is essential to the resiliency And agility of our supply chain and contributes to the economic vitality of the communities where we live and work. We've had a focus on Indigenous in supplier diversity in our reach for quite some time. But what's more recent has been the progress this reach across other ethnic and racial groups, Women, those from LGBTQ plus communities, differently abled, veterans and other historically underrepresented groups. So a broader reach to reflect the communities that we operate in. Our program focuses on 4 areas: Sourcing diverse suppliers to grow our direct business with organizations through buying the needed goods and services, Contributing to the development of diverse suppliers.
For example, we are a national corporate member Of 3 advocacy councils that give us a greater reach, National Minority Supplier Development Council, Canadian Aboriginal and Minority Supplier Council and the Women's Business Enterprise National Council. So we see our suppliers as an extension of us, and our supplier code of conduct outlines Our ESG expectations. Our path forward toward continued progression Includes a disciplined approach to inclusion that's grounded in measurement and data. Despite having strong progress, we know we can't stop here. We remain committed to measuring and sharing our progress, And we hold ourselves accountable and challenge each other to do better.
We are proud of the recognition received to date Through awards or other acknowledgment, however, we don't do this for the accolades. By taking a leadership position With bold steps that demonstrate our commitment, we hope this will encourage others to follow our efforts Towards a more diverse workforce and inclusive environment matters to driving better outcomes for our people, Our customers, communities and stakeholders. So we want to be recognized as a leader in diversity, equity and inclusion And maintain our position as a leading North American employer because we know having a workforce Who are all able to contribute to innovation matters to our business. And with that, I'll turn it over to Karen.
Our commitment To strong corporate governance guides who we are, what we do and how we do it. It's rooted in our people, Values, policies and processes and how we hold ourselves accountable to ourselves, our stakeholders And the communities we operate in. We have this mindset not just because it's the right thing to do, which it is. It's also because our employees, management and Board of Directors recognize that strong governance leads To better decision making and solid results. The strength of our governance mindset starts at the top.
We have an independent, diverse and engaged Board that tests our strategies and practices to ensure we're continuously improving. That's why we've set governance goals, which will further enhance our long history of good governance. And we've tied these and all our ESG goals to compensation to drive organizational alignment and hold us accountable for performance. Our long standing sustainability leadership is demonstrated by our transparency. 2021 marks our 20th Sustainability Report, and it's aligned with well recognized ESG standards and frameworks.
We see diversity on our Board as a strength. Our highly engaged Board of Directors represents A balance of diverse perspectives, backgrounds, experiences and views. There are 4 women on our Board of Directors, each of whom has a leadership role as a chair of a board committee. Racial and ethnic representation on our board increased To 18% in 2021. Board refreshment and renewal is key to having diverse Perspectives in the Board room.
In the past 2 years, we onboarded 5 new directors, resulting in a Board with a healthy balance Of historical knowledge and fresh perspectives. 10 of our 11 directors are independent, and that includes our Board Chair. This helps to ensure that all decisions are made with the best interests of the company and our stakeholders in mind. Board diversity has long been a priority at Enbridge, supported by a written diversity and inclusion policy dating back That highlights the importance the board places on diversity and experience. In 2020, this policy was expanded To include an accelerated Board Gender Represent With 36% woman and 18% racial and ethnic representation on our board as of today, We are well on our way to meeting and potentially exceeding our board diversity objectives.
The composition, size and independence of our Board of Directors enables it to effectively exercise oversight and steward our business To enhance long term performance. Oversight of ESG is fully integrated into the responsibilities Of all 5 of our Board committees, each committee's expertise is relevant for specific ESG related topics. For example, the social Corporate Social Responsibility Committee oversees our emissions goals, Stakeholder engagement and ESG reporting. This includes overseeing the development of the ESG goals we announced In November 2020, the Human Resources Committee oversees workforce engagement and diversity And the alignment of ESG goals to compensation. The Governance Committee oversees Board composition, succession planning And Board Shareholder Engagement.
And the Audit, Finance and Risk Committee oversees our annual corporate risk assessment And financial disclosures, while our Safety and Reliability Committee oversees safety and operational risks, Including physical risks, cybersecurity programs and elements of our safety culture. Handling all these matters at our various board committee effectively integrates the ES and G matters into the work of the board. But the fact is the entire board is directly engaged in driving our ESG practices and performance and how we're positioning to support The energy transition, and that's part of our annual strategic planning process. At every meeting, we update the board and receive feedback On our progress towards our goals and execution of our strategy. This critical feedback ensures that we're continuously refining And improving our approach.
That's our mindset. We have a consistent and dedicated focus On board refreshment and succession planning in order to prepare for planned retirements and unplanned departures, All while ensuring that our board composition remains diverse, effective and skilled. We assess overall board composition regularly to ensure that this balance is maintained. Contributions of the full board, board chair, committees and individual directors are evaluated annually for effectiveness. We maintain a current inventory of high potential independent director candidates to ensure we're planning for the future.
In addition to the skills our directors already possess when they join Enbridge, we provide in-depth onboarding for new directors As well as continuous education opportunities. So far in 2021, our directors have participated In a virtual site tour of Line 3 and attended several presentations on the topic of energy transition from external experts. In addition, our audit committee received an education session from internal experts and our auditors. In today's Fast paced, complex and changing business environment, a proactive approach to risk management is a must. Our annual corporate risk assessment is an integrated enterprise wide process, which challenges us to test our preparedness And Risk Management Systems.
It's a mature and rigorous bottoms up process that involves every part Of the organization. We assess and rank risks based on impact and probability, and we design mitigation plans for each. Our proactive risk management approach informs our multiyear operations, Integrity and maintenance plans as well as our strategy. It also ensures that emerging risks identified early on So that we are ready and able to manage them. One of those risks is cybersecurity, which has been on our dashboard for some time.
To tell you about how we manage this risk, I'm going to turn it over to Bhushan Evaturi, our Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer from our Cyber Ops Center.
Thank you, Karen, and happy to be here. We take seriously our responsibility to protect North America's critical infrastructure. In the last few years, We accelerated investments in cybersecurity and we implemented a comprehensive cyber program. Key elements of this program include A set of technologies and services such as continuous monitoring, threat intelligence and threat mitigation In IT architecture, which ensures that we adapt and we stay current with best practices and that we have several layers of defense, Including the separation and segmentation of networks, our governance model, which includes Measures against industry standard frameworks and our governance also drives assurance at various levels from business operations To the executive leadership team and the Board of Directors, we take several actions to continuously test and validate the effectiveness of our cyber Such as employing independent third parties to conduct red team and purple team hacking exercises, We employ independent auditors, including working with the government to validate our controls. We invest in developing our people And capabilities through continuous education and training.
It's to ensure that we have the right skill sets and the right mindsets. For example, our workforce treats cybersecurity as part of our safety culture. Finally, we're an active partner with the federal governments across United States and Canada, and we collaborate with regulatory agencies and are an active member of many Industry Organizations and our approach is to never be complacent. It's to never stop improving. As such, we actively manage technology, which includes adjusting cybersecurity priorities in context of the risk landscape, the level of the threat actors and overall trends in digitization.
As an operator of critical infrastructure, We take seriously our responsibility to ensuring the safe and reliable supply of energy that powers our economy and empowers our society. Back to you, Karen.
Thanks, Bhushan. When it comes to making progress On ESG issues, we understand the importance of setting goals and measuring progress. Transparent, Best in class reporting is equally important because it holds us accountable to all our stakeholders. Our disclosures align with well established external frameworks so that our information is relevant, Objective and comparable for our readers. And we're continuously improving our disclosures to better communicate our performance.
At Enbridge, we are committed to strong and sustainable corporate governance. It really is the foundation for how we build and maintain public trust in Enbridge. I'll now hand it over to John to kick off our Q and A panel.
Great. Thanks, Karen, and thanks, everyone, for your presentations this morning. We're now through the formal part of Our presentation, we're going to move to the Q and A portion. We've also added Vern Yu, who's the incoming CFO. So looking forward to his participation here.
I encourage each of you to submit your own questions. You can use the question mark at the bottom of your screen Log those questions. And so if you haven't already done so, please add those questions. With that, let's move to the Q and A. So the first question, I think, is probably for Vern and Michelle On supply chain, so from a safety perspective, what supply chain standards are you setting?
And how are you setting them?
Okay. Thanks, John. When we set our safety standards for all of our equipment, it's based on our Engineering assessment of what's needed to be safe and reliable in the operations of our system. So our engineering teams work with our regulators, both in Canada and the United States to develop Standards that are applicable for the individual operation of that piece of equipment. Then it's the job of our supply chain team to try to procure that equipment the most on the most efficient and cost effective basis.
Michel, is there anything you want to add?
Yes. I think I would add, as we move those vendors and Players out to the field, we certainly work very closely with them. We expect them to follow all of our safety procedures. The degree of training that they get That they bring with them, but also that we make sure that they have provided to them is critical. We really treat them no differently than any employee of Enbridge.
They're part of our Enbridge family. And really, when we look at it, our performance is industry leading when it comes To the safety performance of our contracting organization and our contractors.
Great. Thanks, Michelle and Vern. So the next question, Al, I think this one is for you. With create a global energy transition, does Enbridge have plans to significantly expand its footprint into global markets outside of North America?
Well, the short answer is yes. I mean, if you go back in time, John, Enbridge has been in the international arena before in a couple of spots, Spain, Columbia and more recently with our offshore wind business in Europe. So for a company of our scale And size and capability, I'll add, it's important for us to be looking at all the opportunities. Obviously, one of the key criteria we have is returns versus the risk. So we do a lot of work on assessing country risk.
So when you add it all up, it's certainly a big opportunity set for us. We're going to be careful, though, obviously. We've got a lot going on in North America. But as we move forward, it's important for us not just on our conventional business, but on the energy transition aspects that you heard today To be involved in the international arena.
Great. Thanks, Al. Matthew, I think the next question is for you. In terms of scale in the renewables business, it contributes about 5% today. Where do you see that going longer term and how much of that will come from the New Energies team?
Sure. Thanks, Jonathan. We're really excited about the opportunities in Renewable. And we think the Renewable business will grow faster than the rest of The businesses, just because of the fundamentals and the opportunities that are out there to grow it, given the demand, which is, if anything, just accelerating with global government and also private sector emission reduction targets. But we don't really have a specific target for how big it will be within Enbridge or a megawatt target.
And you won't see Enbridge setting a target like that because our investments always are based on the I'm Jonathan Morgan. And we're very proactively looking to grow the business as quickly as possible within those parameters, and it should grow faster than the other business lines Because of fundamentals. In terms of new energy, it's early days there. We're super excited about the opportunities. And longer term, we think this will be big business for us.
As an infrastructure player, these Projects will tie into our assets. They'll be part of our infrastructure. Our infrastructure is a platform for new energy, But it will take time. And so in terms of scale, it'll take many years to scale up. But the key for us is to be ahead of the curve And so that we're ready to capitalize on those big opportunities as they come in the middle and later in this decade.
Great. Thanks, Matthew. The next question is probably for Pete. So given the move by banks and investors to announce net 0 in financing emissions or in finance around emissions. Alongside with the fact that Enbridge has already made good progress on its intensity targets, Does the company intend to update its near term target or set an absolute emissions target?
Yes. Thanks, Jonathan. So I guess I'd take a step back and just level set. It was November of last year that we set our ESG targets. And importantly, our goal is net 0 by 2050.
The interim target is just that. And as I alluded to in my remarks, it's really intended To get the architecture in place across the business to begin to move in the right direction towards net 0. And as I mentioned in my remarks, we've organized our teams. We've got these built into Our business plans, we also have them progress against plan built into our annual scorecard. So We're evaluating progress on an ongoing basis and year over year.
I think it's also important and maybe as the questioner I was referring in terms of the connection to capital flow and our ESG commitments. We announced earlier this year a framework for sustainability linked bonds. And as alluded to in the presentation, we have connected those ESG commitments to those offerings. And so we think we're aligned with the financial community increasingly in terms of our ESG performance. And over time, we'll see how we're progressing against both the interim target And that longer term goal but it is that longer term goal and absolute reductions towards net 0 by mid century that we're most focused on.
Great. Thank you, Pete. Melanie, this next one is probably for you, but Michelle and Vernt, feel free to add into this one as well. How do your key regulators need to change to balance ESG considerations into the project approval process to enable low carbon energy infrastructure projects.
That's an excellent question. Our regulations Do allow us to incorporate energy efficiency into our programming. So that does reduce the energy intensity of how Our customers use the product. When it comes to RNG and Hydrogen, Our regulators need to acknowledge that these low energy forms will be utilizing natural gas transportation. And in fact, They help our customers reduce their emissions.
So for example, we have a voluntary RNG program right now. We So have hydrogen being blended in a pilot. So we need to see more and more of these being enabled by regulators.
So I think it's an incredibly complex topic and area because there's so many opportunities on the gas Transmission side, but one of the places that we're working very closely with our regulators right now is with regards to How we manage a lot of our technical and integrity work. So I mentioned blowdowns in our When I was speaking, there are opportunities for us to lessen that as part of Our work that we do with them, less venting, things like that, I think the fact that our regulators set aggressive standards for us is great. We, of course, want to move beyond those. But on the technical side, we're certainly doing a lot of work with them to see and make sure that we're keeping up The latest and greatest in really driving new technology on methane emissions.
Well, I'll just add A couple of points. I think for existing infrastructure, regulators are making progress on How to best look at the environmental impact of new facilities. And over time, that's becoming a little bit more consistent. But I think that's the biggest issue for building existing or Traditional infrastructure is what should the regulator be looking at? What is a reasonable time frame to make that analysis?
And who should be able to comment on that? So if that can be applied To low carbon infrastructure, I think that will be important. I think one of the things that we're running into as a Society is there's a negative bent to any kind of infrastructure. So if we really want to make progress on low carbon infrastructure, Having a clean and streamlined regulatory process is critical.
Great. Thanks, all of you. Melissa, I think the next question is for you, and Al, you may want to contribute to this one as well. Is there a plan to include indigenous people in the senior leadership at Enbridge, including the Board?
In short answer, yes. As you heard, even as it relates to our corporate governance and Board succession planning, Just like succession planning and talent planning across all levels of our company, we 1st and foremost, want to reach the best talent that's out there. And because we're proactive around our talent planning practices, This enables us to cast that wide net, not only for all the best talent, but inclusive of A diverse workforce and skills.
Well, maybe I'll add on with the Board comment. So look, there's obvious reasons for us to focus on this. Number 1, the simple one is we have a target, Diversity target. So as part of that, we need to be looking at all opportunities. But in the case of indigenous Contribution, there's no doubt that from a business perspective, it could certainly provide additional insight into Board oversight.
So We see that as a big positive. One of the things I mean, Karen mentioned we have a succession planning process. With regard to indigenous potential on the Board or management for that matter, One of the things that has traditionally been done in terms of recruiting, whether it's Board members or senior management, Is recruiting firms, for example, that we may hire bring us an inventory of people that are potential? I think what we're asking recruiters that work for us now is to make sure they focus specifically Whether it's gender or whether it's indigenous contribution, we want them to provide us an inventory of those people. The reality is there is a huge amount of capability in indigenous leadership and Board oversight, And we need Tap That.
So we ask for specific groups of inventory that we can add to our overall mix at the Board level. So we are looking at that, and certainly, it's one of the objectives at Enbridge. Great.
Thanks, Al. Next question is probably for Karen. So in the last proxy The season Glass Lewis recommended withholding votes for some of the Board nominees as they feel Enbridge does not have an independent Board Chair. How do you view Greg?
The way we look at independence is we look at the regulations, the New York Stock The Canadian Securities Rules, all of those rules point to 3 years as a look back to independence. And this is due to Greg Ebel being a former CEO of Spectra. Almost 5 years have passed now. The board has determined he's independent, and he's independent.
Great. Thank you, Karen. Al, I think the next one probably makes sense for you to tackle, but Matthew, you may want to provide some feedback on this as well. Elaborate on how the company incorporates the price of carbon into project economics, specifically with Frequent government changes with differing views of the price of carbon, how do you think about that going forward. Yes.
Okay. Well, with respect to how we incorporate it, I think I mentioned in my remarks, A good chunk of that comes through how we establish the hurdle rate for a particular new investment. And the reality of today's infrastructure business, and this was alluded to not just for conventional energy but for all infrastructure, is that It takes more time, and that impacts schedule. It impacts cost. It is more difficult In terms of opposing forces, we've just witnessed that through a number of examples in our industry.
So the key is for us To incorporate into the hurdle rate effectively a premium that accounts for that additional risk. So that's The primary mechanism of how we do it. Now on carbon pricing specifically, there's 1 of 2 ways. We can actually imply a price of carbon within the cash flows of the potential investment opportunity Or do something similar to what I just mentioned, incorporate the equivalent cash flow cost, if you will, Into the hurdle rate. Either way, the point is we need to be taking into account the higher risks in the business as we search For new investments and evaluate those across the businesses.
It's fine to look at a specific project in a specific business unit, But we need to apply and compare that investment against other opportunities in other businesses or for that matter, Other elements of capital allocation, debt reduction, share buybacks and so forth.
Great. Thanks, Al. Matthew, the next one here is for you directly. The renewables projects are typically cost challenged and rates of return have certainly come down. How is Enbridge approaching those projects differently?
And are lower returns acceptable? DeBoehl.
Okay. Thanks. Lower returns aren't acceptable, but we think that we do have to adjust in order to still get The kinds of returns that we look for at Enbridge, usually low double digit types of returns. And the way we're approaching that First of all, we have competitive advantage in this area. We have Advantages across the value chain in terms of all of our development, construction and operations expertise.
I think more generally, we see opportunities to still get attractive returns at earlier stages of projects where we come in Moore as a developer, generally won't see us coming in at the later stages because we know there's been significant return compression there. But we think we can add a lot of value by coming in at the earlier stages and still get our hurdle rates. And there's tons of opportunities there, whether it's Our self power program for our own pipeline system or for third parties onshore And especially as we've talked about offshore. And in fact, I think we have a track record of that. Our off Sure.
Projects that are under construction now are still tracking to solid double digit returns, and so we want to continue with that and maintain our discipline over time as we grow the business proactively.
This is such a good question. I might want to just tag on to what he said. The people who are listening here today don't have total transparency into all the work that goes into evaluating Projects. And I think Matthew's team has done a very good job of triaging opportunities that make sense and ones that don't. And there's a lot of opportunities that we evaluate.
There's also a lot that we participate in and are unsuccessful in. And I think the discipline that he's talking about around the returns that we need in these projects is absolutely critical. And again, it comes back to comparing those returns to other uses for that capital that we need to be disciplined about.
Great. Thanks. Pete, I think the next question is for you here. With the complexity of meeting Scope 3 emissions, are there Specific focus areas that Enbridge would like to see further clarity from regulators and standard setters.
Yes. So it's a great question and certainly an active area of focus. And when you think about Science Based Targets and the Science Based Targets initiative and their focus around looking at Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions from the entire oil and gas value chain, to date, they have carved out midstream operations, Recognizing candidly, I think, the complexity that I spoke to earlier in my remarks about how to really Dimension and understand credibly what are those Scope 3 emissions that may touch any number Of elements of the value chain as they move from production, to end use. But We've taken a crack at what we think is meaningful, and I'm thinking beyond the utility business where we've been tracking and reporting Scope 3 emissions for some time in terms of natural gas used by our customers were the other elements where we've been reporting. We think it's important.
We think it speaks to this differentiated North American contribution, from a global energy standpoint To really understand and track the emissions intensity of the energy that we're transporting through our systems, we've Begun to report on that, in our most recent sustainability report. We're engaging with some of these, standard setting organizations To really think out loud, engage their reaction to what we're putting forward, and obviously, today's Discussion provides an opportunity for feedback as well. We think it's a meaningful way to track, and we're going to continue to engage in the conversation.
Great. Thanks, Pete. Melanie, I'm going to direct the next one to you. And Michelle, feel free to jump in on this one as well. How does responsibly sourced natural gas fit into the Enbridge ESG framework?
Yes. So as you know, we procure our natural gas from competitive markets in North America. As I'd mentioned earlier, we are hoping that our regulator allows us to source renewable natural gas and hydrogen and add that to the mix. Beyond that, there are initial preliminary attempts Among other parties to try and attach a carbon intensity The gas produced in North America, I think it's in its infancy, so we'll have to see where that initiative goes. Sure.
And on the gas transmission side, you may have seen we're pretty excited about our announcement this morning of our partnership with Vanguard. And that's The first set is about 8 projects, about $100,000,000 worth of investment of working with their mixed use RNG production, we really think that RNG is a significant opportunity to contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. It's about $100,000,000 investment, and it just fits very well with our existing competencies, our existing assets and footprint. So that's something that we'll look to leverage over the years to come.
Just a quick comment, if I could, Jonathan. We talked about the differentiated approach to infrastructure going forward. This is one element of it for sure. We believe that The upstream part of the value chain, which we don't do, or the downstream part in the case of refining, More and more, those elements of the value chain are going to look to midstream to demonstrate that we're differentiated. And I think that's because everybody is going to be moving to net 0.
So I really think that at a higher level, it's part of our overall Differentiation of what we do relative to the rest of the peers.
Great. Thanks, Al. I'm going to stay with you for a minute to take this question here. With a gradual but deliberate shift in your business mix From 46% of natural gas and low carbon today to something in the future, how do you think about that future expectation for its comp our business mix composition. And how do you balance the trade offs between organic and M and A as it relates to getting there?
Okay.
It's for me, right? Okay.
Well, this is a very important question in terms of The strategic direction of the company, the asset mix is obviously a big part of that thinking. And as we said in the remarks, We've moved a long way both on natural gas and renewables. We think that, as Matthew alluded to, it's hard to put an exact Target on what you want to be by when. But what our process is really is to make sure that we're right on top of the fundamentals And to shift the asset mix in accordance with how we see global supply and demand, Well, it probably isn't that surprising to you that we're probably going to see more natural gas in the asset mix. We have a very big ship.
It's hard to make changes in the asset mix with individual transaction, but certainly over time, more natural gas, Certainly, more renewables and perhaps a little bit less on the liquids side of the business simply because those other parts We'll be growing at a faster rate. So over time, as well, electricity, will be a bigger factor in how we See that mix going forward. But again, as Matthew alluded to, we don't want to put a definitive target on that because that usually forces companies To do things that may not be accretive. So that's how we look at it at a high level.
Thanks, Hal. Next question, I think, is going to go to I'm going to start with Pete on this one, but maybe ask Melissa and Michelle maybe to add into this one and Verne. So within each of the E, S and G, what are the top opportunities that you see for us to improve our performance? So maybe start with the E and then maybe we'll go to the G and then over to the S, safety.
Sure. Thanks for the question. And it's certainly where we spend a lot of time focused across the organization these days It's really trying to understand where are the quickest moves that we can make that Our consistent with our core values, consistent with our business plans, that was a lot of the work that I described earlier in our discussion that went into building the targets. But from an emissions perspective, again, modernization and innovation It's a big part of early progress. We're building things into our maintenance and operations plans that will ensure that we're making the right moves in terms of changing out Equipment with more efficient, less energy intensive or emissions intensity equipment, and we're leveraging technology where we can to predict and avoid emissions, that can be avoided in terms of how we're operating our standard operating procedures across the system.
And as evidenced by our early results, It's paying off. But as I alluded to before, it's not going to be completely linear as we think about the economy recovering. So we're looking to exploit each of those pathways. There's a lot of optionality built into them. The other piece, and then I'll move to the S, is just what we're doing in terms of solar self power, both on the liquids side of our business and gas transmission, really taking advantage of our expertise across the businesses To achieve emissions improvement and also control cost, which is important not just to the business and our bottom line, but to our customers as well.
Yes. Thanks. And I would add a focus on the S, a couple of things. One is advocacy And really continuing to increase our reach to external stakeholders as we Continue to evolve and grow our business and tell our story of the contributions as a leader That we are making and will continue to make so that continued focus on stakeholders, new and different stakeholders As we grow that advocacy reach is 1. And then secondly, if I look internally to impact our business and You see our aspirations and goals around our workforce composition.
And those are aspirational, and I Expecting proactively how are we doing using measurements and data to quickly shift and pivot and reprioritize So that we have that confidence in achieving those goals.
Sure. And if I were to pick up on the G side, I think what I'd have to say is, I thought Karen did an excellent job of describing how corporately we look at that and we look at risk. Governance underpins everything we do. It really has to sit there as a platform that ensures that we know That when somebody shows up at one of our facilities, when somebody reviews the integrity of one of our pipes, that they're doing it in a manner that's consistent with what we would expect. And we're a large organization, and that underpinning is critical for us and steps through in absolutely everything That we do.
Thanks, everyone. Matthew, I'm going to direct the next one to you. On the Shell MoU, what's The size of the opportunity here in terms of CapEx and what kind of geographies and technology are you focused on if Alberta CCUS is excluded for now?
Sure. So we for those of you who didn't see, we signed a memorandum of understanding with Shell for New Energy in North America. And to work on a whole number of fronts, we're really excited about it. I mean, at a high level, It's just a great fit because our assets and capabilities are obviously very complementary. We're both large players in the energy industry.
Also, we share the same outlook On energy transition and are very progressive on that, and I think we're both leaders in the industry from the up Stream and retail on their side and the midstream on our side on that front. So it's a natural fit. In terms of areas that we think we can work together on, they're very complementary. One of the things that's really exciting is, the whole Hydrogen space and whether it's blue hydrogen, green hydrogen, some of that can be with carbon capture. That's a big area.
And another, for example, is Renewables. It is in the scope of North America, This partnership, and I'll just mention one thing off the top that I think specifically is really exciting is, As an example, recently, we've been working with Shell on an industrial hydrogen and carbon and capture hub in Southern Ontario. Big industrial hub, lots of emissions potential, lots of storage potential. We have a lot of the storage. Shell is very expert in hydrogen And obviously has industrial facilities.
So that's the kind of thing where we can together really move the dial and get these going and generate growth and move our ESG objectives along for both companies. So very excited about the whole thing.
Great. Thanks, Matthew. Al, the next one is going to come to you. Has Enbridge undertaken a sensitivity analysis relative to the IEA's net zero emissions scenario. And if so, how is the resiliency of the company in the context of that scenario?
Yes. Well, this is a great question. We often get asked, which case do you support? I think the way we've approached this is that we don't have a single case that we use. In this business today, You need to be very flexible, and we need to assess the strength and resiliency of the business to a number of scenarios.
And in our case, it's the steps case, it's the 2 degree case, it's the 1.5 degree case. And As you'll see in our sustainability report, we went through that assessment in for the 2019 report, and we're constantly updating that. So as recently as July, when we went through our fundamentals analysis with our Board, we put out a number of scenarios, And we tested our resiliency again to those. And so that's how we essentially try to make sure we're covering the basis In terms of what could come at us, this is a very dynamic and fluid situation these days with respect to how fast The pace of the transition goes. And what we really try to focus on is trying to be ahead of the curve.
Now you can't go too fast because I think in those circumstances, you may end up making bets that don't pay. And you can't be too slow because it may cost you more to catch up. So our approach to the variety of cases Is to look at them as a whole and determine where we want to be overall. And in our case, we've decided that being slightly ahead PACE is the way to go for us, and I think we're demonstrating that with some of the early investments we've made back Starting with Renewables and now into Hydrogen and RNG and then carbon capture.
Great. Thanks, Al. Michelle, next one's back to you. Is the and Pete, you may want to comment on this as well. Is the methane fee bill on your radar in the U.
S? And how may this impact Enbridge or the industry?
I'm sorry, could you repeat that?
Ethane fee bill that the Biden administration is pursuing.
On our radar?
Yes. Is it on your radar? And how may it impact Enbridge or the industry. And if you like, Pete can maybe start and yes, you
No, I can start. I mean, absolutely, it's on our radar, and we see it As definitely an enabler, I mean, capturing methane is not is just the right thing to do, but it's also Helpful if you have the support of an administration to do that. So it we see it definitely driving some of the actions we'll be taking.
Yes, I might slice a little bit of a finer point there, which is, there are any number of proposals out there To rightly focus on reducing and avoiding methane emissions, clearly, we've got plans that are well developed, and we're focused on executing to mine methane emissions in terms of our operations. From an administration perspective, focusing on What President Biden and his Environmental Protection Agency are moving forward around direct regulation of methane emissions from throughout the really the energy value chain but also more broadly looking at other elements of society that contribute methane emissions. We're supportive of that broadly. To Michelle's point, I think the question around a methane fee as it's Been discussed in some congressional proposals. At its core, we see it as a little bit duplicative To the focus on direct regulation and perhaps, if not well designed, somewhat counterproductive in terms of efficiently driving the types of investment that we as a society and that policymakers are focused on.
But we are watching it, and we'll continue to engage.
Great.
Thanks, Pete. Matthew, maybe over to you. And I think after this, we'll have time for one more question, and then we'll wrap it up. We're seeing accelerated energy investments in Europe around wind, particularly on offshore specifically. What will it take for more wind developments in Canada and the potential for offshore?
We have a big position in Canada now, we are in several provinces with our onshore Renewables. So we're always looking for opportunities. I think the renewable cost relative to other forms of power is Coming down and that will create new opportunities. We think that a lot of the facilities that are in place will become repowered and those are Growth opportunities. And then just generally, as in everywhere, in Canada, what will drive demand for renewable power It's ultimately the price of carbon, which we believe there will be 1 and it will escalate over time and just the targets the private sector has established for emissions reductions and renewable power being obviously the most scalable way to achieve those in the fairly near term.
So Our antenna are up, and we're looking proactively at opportunities in Canada as we are in Europe and the U. S.
Great. Thank you. Melanie, the last one is going to go to you, but Al, you may want to chime in on this one as well. Do you see policymakers in Ontario and Canada making more aggressive regulations to speed the energy transition and specifically around electrification.
Well, There's certainly a desire to reduce emissions in our buildings, among other things. Our view really in Ontario though is that there is a huge competitive advantage for natural gas. It costs a fourth of electricity, and it delivers 2 times the energy and 3 times the peak energy. So I think there's lots of possibilities and certainly a lot of headroom for the continued use of natural gas in its traditional uses and for reducing Emissions associated with it. And we are looking at a number of solutions that would actually integrate the use of natural gas with renewable electricity That we believe can get us there much faster than looking purely at electrification.
Well, this notion of regulation In terms of the energy transition, it's come up a few times. So maybe what I'll do is just focus for a few seconds What we see as critical to all of this, and I'll use carbon capture as a good example, There's no doubt that carbon capture has to be part of the emissions reductions goals. That's clear. Everybody agrees on that. And I think as far as Canada, I think good progress and that there's been recognition that there has to be some kind of seed Or initial incentive mechanism to bring in private capital.
But I think we often forget about all the other things that need to be encompassed And regulation. So for example, on carbon, who owns the carbon? How are we going to allocate enough pore space? What kind of land use regulation does there need to be? What are the other aspects of regulation when it comes to building a Full supply chain, from the ground right through to market.
So I think we've got a good start, But we really need to accelerate the regulatory process, and we're engaged in that in order to make this real Because the faster we get carbon capture moving, I think the better off we'll be in terms of our ability to hit aggressive targets that we've had Internationally, in Canada and the United States. Okay.
Great. Thanks, everyone. So Al, we're going to move to your Closing remarks here, and then we'll wrap up.
Okay.
Thanks, Jonathan. Well, today, you've heard from the team that leads our ESG focus. And as you can see, they're not only immensely capable, But they're also passionate and very proud of the progress that we're making. So I want to leave you just with a couple of takeaways here. We've gone through a lot of information.
We're striving for global ESG leadership, and we have transparent and ambitious goals to get there. Our entire organization, from the Board of Directors right through to the front lines, is aligned with that goal. We're differentiating our infrastructure by ensuring we can safely and reliably deliver affordable energy Hi, while we reach net 0. And as I said earlier, that's going to be very important in terms of our ability to differentiate ourselves with our customers. We're transitioning the business mix in line with the fundamentals and consistent with our long history of how we create value, which is carefully investing capital over time.
And finally, we look forward to listening to your thoughts, as I said earlier, and advice And ways that we can improve, so we can welcome your feedback after this discussion that we have today. So thank you very much for joining us today, and we look forward to continuing that conversation. Thank you.