CHALLENGE

A generation and transmission (G&T) electric co-op was receiving inquiries from its credit ratings agencies about its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) efforts—with the most interest on the “E” as its ratings agencies indicated environmental performance has the greatest potential impact on long-term access to capital. Additionally, over the past several years, there was increasing member interest in environmental issues—specifically carbon emissions. Though the co-op had established and published carbon-emissions reduction targets and has long emphasized and established policies to ensure sound governance practices, its leaders recognized the topic of ESG is not going away; “so it is important for us to ground ourselves in the ESG issues most material to our stakeholders.”

The Challenge: Acquisition of a Wind Energy Power Plant

To take advantage of an acquisition opportunity, our client, a power generation investment firm, contacted ScottMadden to support the diligence of an in-development utility-scale wind energy power plant. The asset had run into permitting issues and was at risk of being discontinued. Our client, who had extensive power generation permitting experience, hoped to buy the plant at a discount, resolve the issues, and divest the asset for a multiple of the original
cost. Our consultants were brought in to validate the bid price and guide the purchasing strategy.

CHALLENGE

Our client, a mid-sized vertically integrated electric utility, announced one of the most aggressive net-zero carbon emissions goals in the United States. The company embarked on a long-term resource planning effort to meet this goal while maintaining reliability and affordability. The client faced several common challenges in this effort, including the consideration of a multitude of options, technology readiness, context and suitability for their territory, and the absence of a regulatory mandate that would require them to pursue lowcarbon options. ScottMadden was engaged to facilitate a long-term resource strategy that could meet ambitious decarbonization goals while maintaining (or improving upon) today’s levels of reliability.

CHALLENGE

A large energy company with natural gas local distribution companies (LDCs) across the United States wanted to accelerate the identification of best practices and increase the standardization of gas LDC processes to reduce its cost of service. Because the LDCs were geographically dispersed, fostering interactions among peers, many for the first time, was vital to ensure alignment. With the help of ScottMadden, a workload-based assessment was performed with client teams, using a series of workshops to identify best practices and efficiency opportunities across the LDCs.

CHALLENGE

A leading private research university was navigating its journey to futurize its HR function, which consisted of more than 120 employees, streamline work, ensure compliance, and better support the university. Throughout the HR organization, a lack of understanding, trust, and alignment, coupled with the global pandemic, stumped the project team’s ability to implement change successfully. ScottMadden was engaged as a change management partner to help create a shared level of understanding and build trust among the HR department.

CHALLENGE

A midsize healthcare organization was experiencing employee dissatisfaction around perceived pay inequities. The company wanted to understand if compensation gaps existed across demographics, positions, departments, etc. and revise compensation policies to create a standardized approach. With the help of ScottMadden, the HR group was able to develop explanatory compensation models for key positions, identify specific pay gaps, define a standard approach to compensation, and apply the new standards and statistical models to address this sensitive issue.