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Article Summary

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This article is about:

Ways you can be more sustainable at home
A New Year's resolution to be more sustainable
Actions Dominion Energy has taken towards greater sustainability

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If you haven’t decided what your New Year’s resolution will be this year, consider taking steps to becoming a more sustainable consumer. From reducing your food waste to making your home more energy efficient, you can make choices to help reduce your impact on the environment.

And we’ll be right there with you. In addition to our Net Zero commitment, we’re always pushing to make our company more sustainable.

Together, we can work toward building a cleaner future for the next generation.

Reduce Food Waste

Globally, nearly half of the solid waste produced is organic or biodegradable, but much of it ends up in landfills. When this waste is sent to landfills it decomposes without oxygen and produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Luckily, composting is one of the ways we can easily reduce the amount of food waste we generate. The process of composting also coverts organic material into stable carbon soil, which retains water and the nutrients of the foods you put into it, making it great for gardening.

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What We're Doing: Scraps from Home

With many of our employees working from home during the pandemic, our team of Workplace Sustainability Advocates started a new program, Scraps from Home, to give employees a convenient way to turn their food scraps generated at home into compost.

Since the program’s launch in September 2020, employees have diverted 800-1000 pounds of food waste each month from landfills through composting.

The nutrient rich compost is then donated to:

Tricycle Urban Agriculture in Richmond
Case Elementary School in Cleveland
Alternative Paths Training School in Northern Virginia

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What You Can Do: Starting Your Own Compost Bin

Starting your own compost bin doesn’t have to be complicated. Here are a few tips:

Fruits and vegetable peelings, egg shells, coffee grounds and tea leaves are all compostable.
In addition to food waste, you’ll want to mix in dead leaves, dead plants and weeds or hay.
Be patient and stick with it — it will take some time for things to break down.
Plan to use the compost you’re creating when planting your garden this spring.

Find a Second Life for Items You No Longer Need

Many household items can be diverted from landfills and given a second life. Gently used furniture, out of date electronics and clothing items you and your family have outgrown, may be able to be used by someone else.

If Marie Kondo-ing* your home is on your to do list, you can still purge your home of things that no longer bring you joy, while also making decisions that are more environmentally-friendly than just putting those old items in the trash.

*Marie Kondo is an organizing consultant.

What We're Doing: Donating Office Supplies and Furniture We No Longer Use

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As a company, we’ve been able to donate gently used office furniture to nonprofits in our communities. This second life for these items means that we aren’t sending furniture to landfills.

Leading up to the implosion of One James River Plaza, we were able to donate thousands of pieces of office supplies and many pieces of furniture to more than 30 local organizations.

What You Can Do: Make Conscious Choices to Reduce What You Send to Landfills

Donate gently used items to local charities such as Goodwill or Habitat Restore. Before donating check with your local organization for COVID guidelines related to donations.
Check out BuyNothing and gift household items to your neighbors rather than putting them in the trash.
When throwing out materials like paint and old batteries, do it responsibly. Search this database to see where you can dispose of hazardous waste.
When you buy items like clothing or furniture, consider buying more things second hand. There are many apps that can help you buy and sell used items.

Be More Aware of the Products You Choose to Use

Everything we buy has its own lifecycle. Some products may last for many years, while others are used in a few minutes or hours. Thinking about the products we use from this lens can help you make more sustainable choices.

Take your morning cup of coffee – do you use coffee grounds from a bag or single use, single serving pods? The single use, single serving pods are filled with coffee grounds and packaged in small pods – after one use and producing just one cup of coffee, those pods are typically thrown away. The bag of coffee grounds, however, makes many cups of coffee before reaching the end of its product life. Making simple swaps in our everyday life give us the opportunity to smarter choices for the environment.

Coffee from a pot is more sustainable than from a pod

What We're Doing: Life Cycle Purchasing

We recognize the value of enhancing environmental and social sustainability in procurement. Even with the large amount of purchasing our organization does, each year we work to improve our impact across our footprint.

Here are a few examples of how we reuse and recycle as much as possible to limit waste in the procurement process:

Our Share Smart program encourages the sharing and reuse of unused office suppliers between employees.
We repair and reuse transformers, regulators, tools, and other equipment to generate cost savings.
We utilize a return program for pallets to prevent waste and reduce miles driven for deliveries.
We recycle scrap metal, including ferrous, aluminum, copper and lead; and wood materials.

What You Can Do: At Home Swaps You Can Make

Making simple and easy swaps at home can help you and your family reduce the amount of waste you're sending to landfills.

These small changes can make a big impact over time.

Download the Checklist

Focus on Improving Energy Efficiency

Making your home more energy efficient can reduce your energy usage and help you save money on your bill. According to the Department of Energy, heating your home typically makes up about 42% of your utility bill.

For example, you can save by setting your thermostat to 68 degrees Fahrenheit when you’re awake and lowering it a few degrees when you’re asleep or away from home.

What We're Doing: Making Our Buildings More Sustainable

Currently, at least eight of our offices and sites are LEED certified, with five additional sites currently undergoing certification.
Our buildings use automation and refined lighting and HVAC schedules to reduce energy use during non-peak and unoccupied times.
We are actively identifying opportunities to add solar panels to our existing buildings, like this plan to add solar to our Tredegar campus, to generate more clean energy.
In 2021, we plan to make improvements, such as HVAC upgrades and replacing existing lights with LEDs, to many of our existing buildings to make them more energy efficient.

What You Can Do: Make Your Home More Energy Efficient This Winter

Conduct a Home Energy Audit (for electric customers)
As your incandescent bulbs burn out, replace them with energy efficient LED light bulbs that will last longer and reduce your energy use
Use a programmable thermostat to control the temperature in your home, setting a lower temperature when you’re away for long periods of time
Shop for Energy Star products

Learn More About Energy Efficiency

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