Earth Day is everyone's day

Earth Day provides a natural opportunity to step back and take stock of our planet and how to assure a healthier, more sustainable, more equitable world. From corporations to individuals, this year’s EarthDay.org theme of Restore Our Earth™ can resonate with all of us.

Here at NRG, we are dedicated to the people, communities, and ecosystems we share. More specifically, Earth Day is a reason to come together as global citizens to take actions that help protect the environment, improve our lives, and make a positive impact.

With that in mind, we invite you to enjoy some Earth Day thoughts from three of our own in-house sustainability influencers on how different steps drive to a meaningful outcome.

This year’s Earth Day theme resonates deeply with Miro. He has always been drawn to clean technology and advocates for further innovation as the path to achieving energy goals. Miro and his renewable team craft attainable solutions that help business customers achieve their sustainability goals through pragmatic and easily applicable long-term renewable electricity agreements. One of his group’s primary functions is to make renewable power more accessible to a greater number of businesses; a key way both to support emerging green technologies and increase customer energy choices.

“I suspect that many people believe Earth Day resolutions imply huge changes in day-to-day activities which would be daunting,” Miro said. “Instead, I like to share smaller actions that are easier to build into our daily lives:  turning off lights that aren’t being used, brushing your teeth while turning off the water while you do it, using fewer plastic water bottles. I try to reinforce these small things in my daily routine.”

Dan has worked at NRG for 10 years, including the last two at our Green Mountain Energy (GME) brand. His current role gives him the opportunity to embrace the Earth Day spirit as part of his job description. Specifically, that means developing new business models for emerging clean-energy technologies. Or as he puts it, “I get to try out ideas and figure out if we can make them work.” His two main focus areas are residential solar panels and driving electric vehicle (EV) adoption with products and plans that make it easy and seamless for customers to convert from gasoline-powered vehicles to EVs. Given the GME focus on environmental sustainability, both EVs and solar panels are natural fits. And for customers, the switch to these products is getting easier and easier.

“To me, Earth Day means living efficiently,” Dan said. "Don’t keep using lots of energy because you can’t be bothered to change. There are better options out there than there were even 10 years ago. Take us up on them. I’m also looking forward to moving my desk back outside. I worked outside all last summer and saved a ton of energy not having to air condition my house. Yes, in Houston. Putting up an umbrella and running a fan worked wonders to keep me cool.”

As a company, we hold ourselves accountable for building a cleaner energy future by making ambitious commitments to reducing our carbon footprint. When it comes to our workforce, we are dedicated to environmental stewardship and encourage volunteering at planting, weeding, and litter clean-up events; recycling and reducing our dependency on plastics; and responsibly enjoying the outdoors.

“At NRG, we’re contributing to a more sustainable future in two ways,” said Jeanne-Mey Sun, Vice President, Sustainability. “First, by meaningfully reducing our carbon footprint and, second, by helping our customers achieve their clean-energy objectives. By providing tools and tips that help customers large and small make smarter energy choices and delivering solutions that make accessing renewable energy easy, we’re providing a seamless transition to low-carbon power.”

This Earth Day, let’s all join the conversation, on our social media channels,  where you can share your Earth Day traditions and resolutions. We look forward to hearing from you.