Environmental Stewardship
At Enterprise, we believe that environmental stewardship is the responsibility of each employee, starting at the top. This commitment is not only a moral obligation, but also makes good business sense, and helps drive the success of our projects and operations company-wide. In addition to playing an integral role in the long-term growth of our company, protecting the environment is also important to our business partners and the communities in which our personnel (including employees of our affiliates, independent contractors and other service providers) live and work. We want our neighbors to know that protection of the environment is a priority and we continuously evaluate and strive to reduce environmental risks, which can affect our business and the community. We have implemented system-wide programs to mitigate this risk and help ensure compliance with federal, state and local rules and regulations.
Our Environmental Stewardship Principles
- Consideration for environmental impacts and methods of reducing those impacts is critical to our company’s growth and the success of new projects. Minimizing environmental impacts from new projects can give us a competitive advantage in reducing permitting time-frames, which facilitates early delivery of projects to meet customer needs. We recognize that environmental stewardship and business success are not mutually exclusive and can, in fact, open up more business opportunities.
- We continuously monitor environmental data, allowing us to anticipate environmental issues before they occur. Our internal environmental monitoring systems allow us to track operational and emissions data, including carbon dioxide and methane, in order to identify and manage opportunities for continuous improvement. These systems allow consistent and reliable accounting, reporting and management of regulatory practices from all of our important oil and gas operations.
- Participation in the environmental regulatory process is inherent to ensuring we implement responsible changes in regards to government policy. We contribute to, and work collaboratively with several industry trade associations such as: Houston Regional Monitoring, Gas Processors Association, and Texas Pipeline Association. This provides us with an opportunity to network and engage stakeholders at all levels of government, provide leadership and share best practices for continuous improvement in fulfilling our environmental responsibilities.
- Responding purposefully and responsibly to emergency situations is inherent to reducing environmental impacts. Our goal is to have zero accidents and mitigate environmental risk through prevention and working with our governmental counterparts, employees, communities and others to promote responsible environmental practices and procedures.
- We constantly evaluate opportunities to lower emissions and energy consumption at our operating facilities to ensure that our plants operate in the most efficient manner. These efforts benefit our customers and the environment.
These diligent efforts to reduce environmental impact lead to indirect benefits such as providing more flexibility in expanding our operations in a cost-effective manner to meet customer needs.
Examples of Environmental Stewardship Throughout the Construction Process
Enterprise has constructed ~5,400 miles of pipeline across 8 states since 2011 to connect increasing hydrocarbon production to growing demand markets. Each project is an opportunity for Enterprise to emphasize our commitment to protect and restore the environment in a way best suited for the community, without limitation to regulatory standards.
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Greenhouse Gas Emissions:
Our commitment to environmental stewardship includes reducing the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of our operations. We focus on reducing process, fugitive, and operational greenhouse gas emissions whenever possible. The main avenues to achieve emissions reduction include:
- Capturing and liquefying vapors rather than flaring;
- Installing lower-emitting equipment when upgrading assets;
- Investing in technologically advanced control equipment; and
- Eliminating or minimizing waste streams.
From 2011 - 2018, we had significant growth by putting approximately $8 billion of capital projects into service, or about 20% of our total property, plant and equipment at the end of 2018. We reduced our direct CO2 emissions per barrel equivalent during this period by 16% while our economic yield on direct CO2 emissions increased 71%.
Enterprise Maintains the Same Commitment Operating Our Assets:
Enterprise relies on a diverse mix of energy sources, including solar and wind power. Currently, we have over 10,500 metering stations across the country operating 100% on solar power and generate approximately 4,000 kilowatts of power generation per day.
These solar operated stations run natural gas chromatographs, measurement, controls, and communications equipment.
- Power generation at the point of power consumption eliminates the inefficiencies of conventional electrical transmission and distribution systems.
- Property owners benefit by minimizing the electrical infrastructure footprint needed for the producing facilities.
- Saves resources by eliminating the need for chemically treated electric poles and high capacity wiring.
In certain areas of operations, where wind is a conducive power source, Enterprise utilizes wind turbines to generate power for cathodic protection and corrosion prevention across our liquid and gas pipelines.
Recycling Program
Enterprise Products has had a recycling program in place at its corporate and satellite offices for many years. In addition to recycling, Enterprise encourages electronic file sharing to avoid any unnecessary paper waste.
In 2018, 147,420 pounds of material was collected which is equal to 73.71 tons processed.
1,253 Trees Saved
516,103 Gallons of Water Saved
302,285 Kw of Energy Saved
4,423 Pounds of Pollutants Kept Out of the Atmosphere
367.1 Cubic Yards of Landfill Saved
We also have an aluminum recycling program through property management at our corporate office and many of our satellite offices.