Third Straight Year of $4 Billion-Plus Spending on Diverse Suppliers; Waste Company’s Success a Prime Example

In its recently released 2023 Supplier Diversity Annual Report, PG&E reported its spending with diverse suppliers last year topped $4 billion ($4.18 billion) for the third straight year. Last year was also the 18th straight year PG&E exceeded the California Public Utilities Commission’s diverse supplier spending goal of 21.5% of the company’s procurement budget (36.57%).

The report states during the last five years (2019-23), PG&E’s overall diverse supplier spending rose $768 million, or 22.5%. In that period, spending increased particularly with women-owned ($281 million, 28%), disabled veteran-owned ($83 million, 27.6%) and minority-owned ($374 million, 17.9%) businesses.

In 2022, PG&E’s supplier diversity program supported nearly 39,000 jobs, provided $3.1 billion in wages and generated $1 billion in taxes.

What’s the secret?

There’s a reason behind PG&E’s success in supplier diversity: teamwork.

In the annual report, PG&E Corporation CEO Patti Poppe cited “the active collaboration that connects our 577 diverse suppliers to community-based partners to our teams throughout PG&E in delivering on our ‘triple-bottom line’ approach to doing business, serving People, the Planet and California’s Prosperity.”

A prime example is Hispanic-owned American Integrated Services, which removes, transports and disposes of non-hazardous and hazardous waste and performs emergency services. AIS, which has offices throughout California, became a PG&E primary supplier three years ago after being a sub-contractor to PG&E primary suppliers.

During this time, AIS has expanded its services to Kern County and increased its workforce, which has enabled the company to be more efficient in servicing PG&E and other clients.

“Their business with us has increased because of two factors: safety and reliability,” said PG&E Expert Business Analyst Charles Price. “What makes AIS work for PG&E is their responsiveness, eagerness and how they show up to perform work. Our Environmental Field Specialists trust they’ll show up to perform the work safely and on time.”

Performing under pressure

Price remembered when PG&E’s San Carlos Service Center was severely flooded during New Year’s Day storms in 2023, affecting buildings and vehicles and covering the yard with mud. “The facility needed to be remediated quickly so we could continue to use the yard to help restore power to our customers on the Peninsula,” he said.

“AIS’ project manager answered the call when other companies didn’t,” added Price. “We had cleanup crews moving that day to start the lengthy cleanup process. They do great work and they do it safely.”

Collaboration is the key 

Besides working in a safe and efficient manner, another reason why AIS has succeeded is the partnership with PG&E’s supplier diversity team.

“They took an interest in assisting and guiding AIS through the vendor approval process,” said AIS Marketing Director Lisa Huizenga. “They set up periodic meetings to monitor our progress and shared opportunities to participate in the request for proposal process and made introductions to several procurement leads.

“The AIS-PG&E relationship,” added Huizenga, “has grown dramatically in the past year through a true working partnership between both companies.”

“Diverse suppliers are valuable to PG&E,” said Price. “We understand California is a great diverse state. We can represent this diversity through our workforce and our contractors.”

“Our main goal was just to be provided the opportunity to compete and demonstrate our value,” said Huizenga. “We look forward to continuing and growing the great relationships we’ve developed.”