American Water

CEO: Jeffry Sterba; Revenues: $2.88 Billion (2012); Employees: 6,700 (2012)

American Water Works Company, Inc. is the largest publicly traded water and wastewater utility company in the United States. Founded in 1886 and based in Voorhees, New Jersey, the company provides water and wastewater services to an estimated 14 million residential, commercial, industrial, public, and other customers in more than 30 states and Canada. In addition, it enters into contracts to operate and maintain water and wastewater facilities for the United States military, municipalities, the food and beverage industry, and other customers; and provides services to domestic homeowners to protect against the cost of repairing broken or leaking pipes inside and outside their homes. Further, the company provides biosolids management, transport, and disposal services to municipal and industrial customers.

Climate and Energy Targets

American Water seeks to lower its GHG emissions per volume of water it produces by 16 percent from 2007 levels by the year 2017. To accomplish this goal, it plans to invest significant capital in increasing pump efficiencies, purchasing cleaner generated energy sources, reducing its fleet and increasing the use of onsite solar and other alternative energy producing methods.

Did You Know?

"With the right policies, clean and affordable energy can fuel the US economy in this century. Companies and states cannot achieve this balance alone. We need a federal mandate for addressing climate change that will create national and international markets, a price for carbon, and incentives for low cost and clean technologies." - Jeffry Sterba, CEO

The Energy-Water Nexus [1]: Energy and water are inextricably linked. Read more about the connection here.

Reducing Energy Use [2]: American Water proactively seeks to implement measures that increase efficiency, conserve energy and water, and reduce waste.

White Paper: Challenges in the Water Industry: Climate Change [3]: Climate change is greatly affecting weather patterns and the world’s ecosystem and, in particular, posing serious challenges to the world’s water supply. This paper outlines challenges that the water industry will face because of these predicted changes and the solutions sought to minimize these challenges.

Climate and Sustainability Rankings & Recognition

Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index

Additional Resources

American Water Website [4]

American Water Corporate Responsibility Website [5]

American Water Environmental Sustainability Website [6]

short description:

American Water Works Company, Inc. [7] provides water and wastewater services to residential, commercial, industrial, public, and other customers in the United States and Canada.

Energy Efficiency Initiatives

Buildings summary:

In Pennsylvania, American Water is piloting a technology that allows its large energy consuming sites to reduce their electricity consumption during peak events or times of energy usage. This “demand management” technology will avoid the need for additional power generation and reduce energy costs for its customers.
All American Water facilities are incorporating high efficiency lighting technology to reduce energy use. Lighting accounts for less than one-half of 1 percent of the company’s electricity use. While lighting improvement projects are a good use of capital dollars, the impact on the company’s carbon footprint will be minimal because lighting represents such a small portion of overall electricity use.

Internal Operations summary:

American Water has set a goal to reduce its GHG emissions per volume of water produced by 16 percent from 2007 levels by the year 2017.
The vast majority of American Water’s electricity consumption is used to pump water from source to treatment and storage facilities and on to its customers. The company is testing the efficiency of its pumps, evaluating alternatives for improvement, and designing enhancements. Improved pump efficiency is an opportunity to both reduce energy use and decrease the company’s carbon footprint. Research has shown that the average “wire-to-water” efficiency of existing “in-field” water utility pumps is about 55 percent. New installations are designed to achieve efficiency ratings of between 76 and 82 percent. American Water sees this as a major opportunity to decrease its carbon footprint. By replacing or refurbishing older pumps, its studies have shown that pump efficiency can improve by as much as 20 percent.
About 5 percent of American Water’s GHG emissions come from its vehicle fleet, which is used to operate and maintain its water and wastewater systems. The company is working to improve the efficiency of its fleet of cars and trucks and has implemented a "no idle policy" to improve fuel efficiency. American Water continues to work with public utility commissions in the states in which it operates to obtain approval for the increased purchase of high-efficiency, hybrid and electric vehicles.

Supply Chain summary:

A large number of products purchased by American Water are produced utilizing recycled materials. With respect to infrastructure items, all iron castings, whether ductile or other, are manufactured by melting ferrous scrap mixes depending on availability and pricing. Such items include ductile iron pipe and fittings, hydrants, valve bodies, curb and valve box castings, iron lids, among others.
A number of American Water’s treatment chemicals utilize recycled material in their production. These include ferrous and ferric salts (ferric sulfate and ferric chloride), which are manufactured using ferrous scrap. The remaining chemicals are produced using virgin materials. In 2010, treatment chemicals produced from recycled material and used by the company’s regulated business accounted for 11 percent of the treatment chemical purchases across American Water.

American Water is a member of the Business Environmental Leadership Council (BELC), the largest U.S.-based association of companies dedicated to business and policy solutions to climate change. The company serves approximately 15 million people with drinking water, wastewater, and other water-related services in approximately 30 states and 2 Canadian provinces. The company also enters into public/private partnerships, including operation and maintenance contracts; and design, build, and operate contracts for the provision of services to water and wastewater facilities for municipalities and the U.S. military. The company also provides biosolids management, transport, and disposal services to municipal and industrial customers. It offers granular carbon technologies and products for cleansing water and wastewater, wastewater residuals management services, and water and wastewater facility engineering services. The company was founded in 1886 and is based in Voorhees, New Jersey.