TC Energy Corporation (TRP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
June 14, 2022
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Francois Poirier
executiveGood morning, everyone. I'm Francois Poirier, the President and CEO of TC Energy, and I want to welcome you to our inaugural ESG Forum. I think it's appropriate that it's our inaugural ESG Forum because when I became CEO about 1.5 years ago, we changed our vision to acknowledge energy transition. We changed our mission to prosper irrespective of the pace and direction energy transition takes. And we had some significant learnings in our first year, my first year as CEO, and then our first year as a leadership team around the value of our incumbency, but also around the importance of culture and capabilities. So you're going to hear a lot about those 2 things today. It may not be things that you typically would hear a management team talk about during an investor conference, but trust me, culture and capabilities are the cornerstone of a successful implementation of an ESG strategy. I want to start with a safety moment, focus on the importance of being aware of your surroundings, expecting the unexpected and then considering what can go wrong. So as some of you may have heard, Calgary is facing some potential flooding today. So we responded quickly to the potential threat. We've asked our Calgary-based employees to work remotely until further notice. And I'm very proud that at TC Energy, we have the ability to maintain business continuity in the face of potential disruption and that we always lead with safety. So let's get started. In the spirit of reconciliation, I want to open with a land acknowledgment. This is a statement that recognizes the traditional territory of the indigenous peoples and their rights. It's also an opportunity to express gratitude to the traditional stewards of a specific location. So as we're meeting in the City of Toronto, I acknowledge that we're in the traditional territories of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples. The city is now home to many diverse First Nations and Métis peoples. We also acknowledge that Toronto is covered by Treaty 13 signed by the Mississaugas of the Credit and the Williams Treaties signed with multiple Mississaugas and Chippewa nations. What's a conference without the eye chart? Certain statements made in this meeting contain forward-looking information that are subject to important risks and uncertainties. And for more information on these, please refer to our most recent quarterly results and our 2021 annual report. So at our last Investor Day, Patrick Keys, our Chief Sustainability Officer, discussed our approach to environmental, social and governance matters. Since then, the world has experienced a significant geopolitical shift. This is underscored for us the need to develop greater energy security from countries that prioritize a strong commitment to all pillars of the ESG spectrum. This is critically important as we recognize the role we play in ensuring responsibly produced energy is available to all who need it. We are guided by our 10 sustainability commitments. These commitments align to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and we have 30 tangible targets to measure and report on our progress. And I'm proud to announce that this year, TC Energy joined the UN Global Compact. This is the world's largest corporate sustainability initiative that is aligning companies' actions with universal principles on human rights, labor, environment and anticorruption. Now for 2022, we also further embedded ESG and energy transition goals into our corporate scorecard. You get what you measure. We've increased the waiting for ESG measures, including safety and sustainability because for us, everything starts with safe operations. And safety is paramount to achieving every other goal we have. We've also explicitly added a metric for advancing key energy transition initiatives. So for 2022, our scorecard weightings are 25% for ESG priorities, including safety; 50% for in-year financial results; and 25% for advancing other strategic priorities, including growth of energy transition initiatives. These metrics have a direct impact on compensation for all executives, but importantly, more than 7,000 of our employees are impacted by our scorecard. For today's agenda, we've asked you directly what you want to know more about and thanks for your feedback. Thanks for engaging with us over the years on how your firms view ESG in your investment decision-making process. This is really helpful. Today, we'll demonstrate why we are differentiated in our approach to embedding energy transition into our business strategy; finding new, effective and meaningful ways to work with stakeholders and rights holders and communities; attracting top talent and empowering our people, all while continuing to deliver sustainable shareholder returns and long-term value. You'll hear from leaders who are working every day to create a resilient future. I'll start with an overview. Then Roland Muwanga and Omar Khayum will join me for a discussion on energy transition. Patrick Muttart will discuss stakeholder engagement, and he'll also interview Tiffany Murray on her experience working with indigenous communities on the Coastal GasLink project. Next, Joel Hunter, our CFO, and Dawn de Lima, will have a fireside chat on talent and diversity. We'll wrap it up with the opportunity for you to ask our presenters additional questions. Now originally, that panel was going to be moderated by our Chief Sustainability Officer, Patrick Keys, who would be reasonable for you to expect would be at an ESG conference. Patrick took ill over the weekend and did the right thing, ensuring the safety of his colleagues and decided to stay back. And so Joel Hunter is going to pinch it for him in the moderator role. So let's dive in. Any discussion of the E in ESG starts with the topic of greenhouse gas emissions and a lower carbon energy future. And we're embedding these energy transition questions into our business strategy. The challenge we face globally is to achieve a transition to lower-emitting energy while meeting the world's ongoing demand. This challenge has never been more evident than with today's geopolitical challenges, how do you deliver reliable, affordable and sustainable energy. That's the balance we need to achieve. This is a pivotal moment for the world. and for TC Energy. We have an extraordinary opportunity in my mind to support energy security and lead the energy transition. My view is that the energy transition is a catalyst for growth for this company going forward. I've been involved in surrounding the energy infrastructure industry for almost 35 years, and I have never ever seen an opportunity set that is as compelling as it is today. Leveraging our competitive strengths, we'll develop solutions to move, generate and store the energy North Americans rely on in a secure and increasingly sustainable way. As I said, energy transition is a catalyst for future growth that aligns with our commitment to deliver long-term shareholder value. And we're going to talk a lot about how we're going to do that, maintain our risk preferences and earn reasonable rates of return as we execute on that plan. Now as you see on this graph, out to 2050, there are wide-ranging scenarios on both CO2 combustion and energy consumption. Our strategic planning tests the resiliency of our portfolio against all of these scenarios, including an accelerated energy transition. We adapt our strategy to ensure we deliver enduring value no matter what direction the future takes, and this is going to influence our capital allocation decisions in the future. On this slide are the scenarios from the IEA's latest World Energy Outlook. The key takeaways for me are as follows. Across all 2050 scenarios, the demand for energy remains robust. Underlying the world energy consumption, you see that natural gas maintains a key role, with various levels of CCUS abatement across the different scenarios. And this makes sense since it's a reliable, efficient, affordable source of energy. And in power generation, it has a lower CO2 profile compared to coal. In North America, there is still opportunity for more coal to gas conversions. A statistic I like to quote is that within 50 miles of our ANR and Columbia assets, there are 26 gigawatts of coal-fired generation expected to retire by 2030. If only a fraction of that capacity is replaced by gas-fired generation, we're looking at several Bcf of incremental demand, which will require significant investment in transportation capacity. We can also help facilitate this transition overseas with the expansion of our access to LNG terminals. Renewable energy, including hydrogen, is also projected to grow dramatically, along with reliable on-demand energy sources for a stable electricity grid. The projected decline in oil consumption will still favor assets, like our liquids pipeline system that is strategically connected to low-cost sources within high demand centers. The learning from this graph for me is that across all outlooks, we need to have an all-of-the-above strategy. Every source of energy supply will be required to meet demand as the globe's population grows by another 2 billion people by 2050. And we have 1.7 billion people on the planet today who don't have access to any form of energy. All forms of energy will be required to meet demand. The question being, which scenario will unfold? And that will influence the specific mix of energy supply that will meet demand. And as I said, our mission at TC Energy is to prosper irrespective of the pace and direction energy transition takes. So when you look at our capital allocation, that will drive decisions around diversification. When you look at our culture, that will drive development of skills around innovation. When you look at capabilities, we are going to develop origination and development and operations capabilities and technological know-how across a vaster spectrum of technologies. And we'll hear more about those as the day progresses. Our assets already provide a diverse mix of energies in strategic locations. And with these, we can support newcomers, such as hydrogen and CCUS. Make no mistake, these technologies require the collaboration of incumbents. Companies with assets such as ours must play a key role in energy transition. The barriers to entry in CCUS and hydrogen are high. The transition will also take decades in our view. So we have time to evolve, to adjust, to grow our capabilities and prosper under any scenario. But you have to be planful and be looking around corners that are 5 years ahead and 10 years ahead, and be resilient and be agile and adaptable. We also know that we have a role in supporting global climate goals. Last year, we set targets as follows: to reduce our GHG emissions intensity 30% by 2030 and to position to achieve net zero emissions from our operations by 2050. We took a little bit of extra time. We may have been among the last of our direct peers in the midstream sector to publish our goals. Why did we take more time? Because we wanted to be methodical and systematic in our approach, mapping our path forward, including explicit levers and strategies to get there. So we identified 5 focus areas to support our goals. The first is modernizing our systems and assets. The second and the one that will contribute the most to achieving our 2030 objectives is decarbonizing our own energy consumption. Third, driving digital solutions and technologies. For example, looking to increase capacity and availability in our assets through digital strategies without investing any incremental capital. Four, we're also evaluating opportunities to invest in low-carbon energy and technologies, CCUS and hydrogen for example. And lastly, we will selectively use carbon offsets in remote and hard-to-abate areas. Now these are supported by specific abatement tactics with quantifiable emission reductions. Now as I said, in the next decade, most of our identified reductions will come from decarbonizing our own energy consumption. This includes reducing fuel consumption in our natural gas compressors and sourcing renewable electricity to power our liquids pipelines. Activities to modernize are vital to reducing fugitive emissions, leaks, venting and flaring and improving our overall operational efficiency. So those last 2 levers address over 80% of our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, and work is already underway. For example, we are a member of the ONE Future Coalition in the U.S. This is a group of over 50 natural gas companies working to reduce methane emissions. In 2020, our U.S. Natural Gas Pipelines business had emissions intensity that was 32% lower than the transmission and storage sector average in the U.S. And in 2021, our Canadian Natural Gas Pipelines reduced their overall methane emissions by 20% in a single year. Long term, our strategy is to invest in low-carbon energy and technology to help build the energy systems of the future. So as we think about how is TC going to prosper as the supply mix evolves. Well, we have a vast synergistic asset footprint. We enjoy incumbency in many of the businesses and many of the geographies we operate in. We have developed and are developing strategic relationships and partnerships. You're going to see more partnerships as innovation happens because not every company can manage all of the risks that present themselves with new technologies. So you want to partner with those who have the critical competencies to best manage every risk. So actually being a good partner is a skill in its own culturally, and it is actually also a capability. We have strong organizational capabilities, and we're going to continue to build them in new areas. And of course, we have financial scale and strength, which is a significant competitive advantage. These are the means by which we will originate new opportunities in any scenario. As we take this journey, we'll remain focused on adhering to our risk preferences, maintaining a strong balance sheet and delivering sustainable shareholder returns. Now our map showcases our unique value proposition. This is cool. We're going to flip over the map a few times. As we just discussed, natural gas will absolutely remain important in our view. Here, you see the connectivity of our network to the prolific low-cost sources of natural gas in North America. With over 90,000 kilometers of pipe in the ground and more than 650 Bcf of storage capacity, we move natural gas from the premier basins to the highest demand markets. And we connect to LNG export points that serve the world today or are in development for future access. Today, we transport about 1/4 of the U.S. LNG export and are building the project that will connect Canada's first direct link to overseas natural gas markets. Now crude oil is also expected to remain important. We have an established footprint of almost 5,000 kilometers of liquids pipelines and 5 storage tank facilities. The system stretches from Alberta to the U.S. Midwest, and ultimately down to the Gulf Coast. Now in our scenario analysis, as part of our strategic planning process, we've tested the relevance and the competitiveness and the resiliency of the U.S. Gulf Coast refining complex. And given the direct access and competitive toll structures, they are expected to maintain their ongoing value. In fact, as I recall from our analysis, in the lowest possible use case for liquids of any scenario, the U.S. Gulf Coast remained at full capacity. So we feel very comfortable that we're serving the strongest and most resilient customer base in-basin. And we aim to reduce Scope 2 GHG emissions on our liquids pipeline by 99% by 2025. 99% by 2025. I believe we will be the first net zero pipeline, net zero crude oil pipeline for Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions in the world. We'll achieve this by primarily sourcing renewable electricity to power the system with the support of our complementary power business. And I'll point out that among the midstream companies, among our direct peer group, I believe we have a very unique proposition because we understand the relationship between molecules and electrons. We've been in the power business for 30 years. We've operated run-of-river hydro. We operate nuclear. We've operated every form of natural gas-fired technology, peakers, combined cycle, cogens. We've operated -- we dispatch coal plants when the Alberta market deregulated. So we understand the power business in a way that most of our midstream peers do not. And of course, I should mention wind and solar, we operated in Quebec and Ontario. So today, we own or have interest in 7 power generation facilities with a net capacity of 4.3 gigawatts, enough to power more than 4 million homes. And approximately 75% of that capacity is emissionless. We're prudently increasing our investment in this segment, which I will talk about some more in a few minutes. Now in the last 70 years, we've grown from our original Canadian roots to be a truly North American company with connections to global markets. Our system includes over $100 billion of strategically located assets that we believe, in the current environment, frankly, is impossible to replace. We enjoy incumbency, as I talked about, and strong synergies within our asset footprint and our businesses. I just talked about the relationship between our power business and our liquids business and what we're able to achieve for the first time. We can uniquely access opportunities with high barriers to entry, for example, carbon capture and storage and hydrogen and also small modular reactors, which may be a few years behind into the future. But as you've seen some of the leaders among the oil sands producers, they believe that small modular reactors can play a critical role in decarbonizing that sector, and we are very well positioned to partner with them to do that. Now the social aspect of ESG is also fundamental to what we do. I talked about the importance of culture and capabilities in successfully executing our strategy. We've established strong relationships and strategic partnerships over many decades across 3 countries with customers, with landowners, with communities, with indigenous rights holders, with environmental organizations, governments and even competitors. Yesterday's competitor is today's frenemy. Now this heat map shows where we've invested our community giving dollars in 2021. And by understanding what matters most to our partners across our footprint, we directed a total of $27 million to causes that are close to home. Later you'll hear from Patrick and Tiffany on other ways we've been building strong stakeholder relationships. When you talk about culture, when you talk about capabilities, you're really talking about people. Our people across North America will make it all happen. And we're developing our organization to ensure we have the right people with the right skills in the right roles. Today, we have more than 7,000 people. One of my favorite things to do is to go out in the field and meet our employees. As a matter of fact, 2 weeks ago, we spent a few days in Mexico visiting our employees at the largest compressor station anywhere in the TC Energy fleet in Altamira as well as other locations. And I'm always struck when you meet folks in the field who deliver the service that meets the energy needs of society, about their pride, their passion and their professionalism. And frankly, it's inspiring. If I could bottle it and bring it back to the office towers, that would be a great thing. So I'm very proud of our employees. We have a lean and high-performing team that tackles big challenges. They're fearless. They safely maintain and operate a very complex system. They build new projects. They deliver energy solutions for the future. And we've recently created an energy transition technology team led by Roland Muwanga, who's going to join me on the stage in a few minutes. And we've created a centralized team to originate energy transition opportunities. Because we've realized that to prosper, we need to be energy problem solvers. We need to be more customer facing. The customer who will pay our tolls 10 years from now may look very different than the customer who pays our tolls today. We value all of our customers, but tomorrow, it might be a data center. It might be a food manufacturing facility, it might be a steel manufacturer as opposed to an ISO or a utility. Those customers make decisions differently. They make them at a different speed. And they're not going to wait for us and our processes. So we have to adapt. We have to be agile. We need to be cost competitive. We need to deliver high quality, but we also need to be adaptable and agile. So when we talk about culture, that's really what I'm referring to. Now on talent, you'll hear more from Joel and Dawn about our strategies. Now our $25 billion secured capital program is underpinned by long-term contracts or regulated business models as you are so familiar with the way we approach commercial sanctioning and capital allocation. This gives us visibility to deliver earnings and cash flow while reducing our GHG emissions intensity and continuing to lower our overall leverage metrics. I talked about the importance of financial strength and scale. Our secured capital investments in natural gas pipelines include over $8.8 billion in our Canadian gas pipelines to expand our NGTL system and to move natural gas to the West Coast for LNG. More than $8 billion for the modernization, electrification, maintenance and enhanced LNG access in the U.S. and over $2 billion to displace diesel and fuel oil in Mexico to generate power through burning of natural gas. We also continue to grow zero emissions power delivery through our $4 billion life extension program at Bruce Power, with more investments on additional units to be sanctioned throughout this decade. In liquids, we're enhancing the existing infrastructure and adding operational flexibility for our customers. Essentially, enhancing the value of that corridor from the Western Canadian Basin all the way down to the Gulf Coast. And of course, as I mentioned previously, we're going to decarbonize our electricity consumption on that system. Now when you look at the existing capital program, when you look at our energy transition opportunity set, when you look at global needs for reliable, affordable and sustainable energy, it's no surprise that we are confident in our ability to sanction $5 billion of new projects per year throughout the decade, including recoverable maintenance capital. We expect that progressing our slate of secured projects and various other growth initiatives will support long-term growth and comparable EBITDA as well as comparable earnings and cash flow per share, while reducing our emissions intensity. Now beyond reducing emissions intensity on our own systems, we see many opportunities to help other industries and customers decarbonize. We're exploring projects like the Alberta Carbon Grid, which will help multiple industries in Alberta and our customers reduce their emissions. We're increasing our renewable natural gas intake from livestock farms and landfill sites with partners like GreenGasUSA. We're working with industrial hydrogen partners to decarbonize the heavy trucking industry. Much of our pipeline system, by the way, is located alongside North America's highways, creating a wonderful synergy. We're working with Irving Oil to develop low carbon energy generation and GHG reduction initiatives. And we're adding reliable, affordable, lower-emission and renewable power to decarbonize our system and support our customers. So what we're learning to do for ourselves, reduce our own emissions, increase our own efficiency, we're taking that out to our customer base. And guess what, they have a need for a trusted partner to help them solve this equation for themselves. They don't live in energy systems the way we do. So they're looking for a trusted partner to help them solve their energy problems. Now regardless of the origination of these new projects, they will be aligned with our risk preferences and our return expectations. And we know this because those with whom we are currently partnering to develop new low-carbon infrastructure are the ultimate customers for those projects. So we're having conversations with them around what we need to commercially sanction new capital from a risk profile standpoint and from a return standpoint. And we have the benefit of that direct feedback to give us the confidence to make that statement to you, our shareholders. While no one knows what the path is to 2050, the IEA has identified 4 key priorities to keep the door open to net zero by 2050. These priorities include pushing for clean electrification and increasing the low emissions share of electricity generation, focusing on energy efficiency and decreasing the energy intensity of the global economy, decreasing methane emissions from fossil fuel operations and boosting clean energy innovation by investing in advanced clean technologies. What we've done on this slide on the right-hand side is we've mapped many examples of how our secured capital program and announced partnerships support these 4 priorities. Now the synergies across our asset footprint, our competitive strengths and our incumbency are hard to replicate. The opportunity set is massive. And our market position is enviable, so we've tested -- and we have a tested and disciplined approach to capital allocation, which I've referenced before. We assess every opportunity through the lens of our familiar risk preferences and return expectations. So it's no surprise that we can confidently embed energy transition into our strategy. It's no surprise that we can confidently embed energy transition into our strategy. So with this judicious approach, we expect to continue to deliver on growth in earnings and cash flow. So from where I'm standing, this positions us extremely well for the future. Now I'd like to invite Roland and Omar to join me on the stage, and we'll have a little bit of a Q&A. Thank you for your kind attention.
Roland Muwanga
executiveGood morning, Francois.
Francois Poirier
executiveGood morning. Good morning, Roland. Well, let's jump right into it. Roland, you lead our energy transition technology efforts. You have a really cool job, by the way. So thinking about our GHG reduction goals, we'll start with you. What makes you optimistic about our ability to achieve our goals?
Roland Muwanga
executiveYes. Thanks, Francois, and good morning, everyone. So I'm optimistic because we took our time developing this plan to ensure that it's achievable. The plan calls for us to reduce our carbon intensity 30% by 2030, then further position ourselves for net zero by 2050. Now this plan is cemented in 5 key strategies to reduce our emissions. Three of those strategies, when I look at them, the technology exists today to realize our 2030 targets. So perhaps I could walk through a few examples. The first strategy is modernizing our existing asset base. A large part of that, when I look at it, is our methane emissions. Those are typically in 3 different buckets: your vented emissions, blowdown-type emissions and fugitive-based emissions. Now the blowdown emissions typically come when you have a maintenance event, you need to reduce the pipe pressure and the methane gets evacuated to the atmosphere. What we're doing today is you can capture that methane and reinject it back into the pipe. The teams in TC have done that, the technology is available to do that and what they're working through is how do you make that more of a repeatable process, how do you make it a best practice as part of your maintenance, how do you make it more cost effective. Another bucket of the methane emissions is your fugitive emissions, and so those comes from leaks at your various facilities. We've had a leak detection and repair program in Canada since 2020. What the team has been working through there is how do you optimize that program, how do you make it as the best practice, and now further, we're looking at it in our U.S. operations is how we leverage that as part of our decarbonization efforts. Now that's lever number one, modernizing our existing asset base. Number two is decarbonizing our energy consumption. And when I look at the largest component of our emissions, that comes from our compressor units running natural gas to move the energy across the pipeline system. There's electrification technology available today, whereby you can run an electrical grid versus natural gas to power your compressor unit. We've deployed that on a couple of growth projects in Virginia, in Wisconsin. And the neat thing with what they did there was they're not just running on electricity, rather they run as a dual fuel. So primarily, you run in electricity, in the case, you have a grid upset, you can switch over to your natural gas. So it provides both a decarbonization benefit as well as the reliability of energy delivery. So that's thinking out to 2030. Now as I think out to 2050, you need to monitor the landscape and what's happening there with the various technologies. And what gives me optimism as I look to our vendors, our suppliers, the entire ecosystem is providing a huge tailwind for us in our decarbonization efforts. So typically, your turbine compressor manufacturer would offer units that, say, increase your efficiency. Today, you talk to them, they have units that can decrease your emissions. But you talk to them further and say, "Hey, we're looking at units. And by 2030, we'll have units that can run 100% on hydrogen." So now if that's a pathway you choose to go down, if we choose to go down it, we have that huge tailwind support from our vendors and suppliers who are already looking at that today. Now looking at the third lever, driving digital technologies and solutions, there's a number of start-ups up there who are offering various measurement systems, systems to bring in the emissions data and then integrate it and allow us to make better decisions. What's helping us through this, we're partnering with Amazon Web Services to assess this landscape, identify the right platform, software systems to bring in-house and further drive down our emissions. So a lot's on the go, the technology is available today and we're looking at the horizon for 2050 as to what will allow us to achieve our targets.
Francois Poirier
executiveThanks, Roland. That's a terrific perspective. Omar, you lead all of our customer-facing activities on the origination side. And I talked about the journey that we're on to reduce our own emissions and how we're able to share those learnings and partner with our customers as thought partners, as energy problem solvers. What's your perspective on our confidence in our ability to achieve our targets?
Omar Khayum
executiveYes. Francois, that's a wonderful question. And good morning, everyone. I am incredibly optimistic about our capability to decarbonize our own systems as well as help our customers. We are opportunity-rich and we're delivering today on opportunities, energy transition opportunities, both for the benefit of our corporation and for our customers. And what enables us to do that is the scope and scale of the incumbency that you spoke about paired with what Roland talked about, the new capabilities that we're adding to our platform. And I think one of the best examples of this is what you talked about earlier around decarbonization of our crude oil system. As you said, by the end of this -- by the end of 2025, we would have decarbonized our crude oil system. To date, we've signed 400 megawatts of PPAs for wind and solar projects across the U.S. and Canada. We expect to complete that program by the end of this year, with assets coming online by 2025. But that's not all. It's not good enough for us to just decarbonize for our own benefit. Our efforts have not gone unnoticed. In fact, customers have approached us, and we're engaged and partnered with customers to help them decarbonize. We've sold over 1 gigawatt of long-term PPAs for wind and solar to third-party customers off of the back of our program on a nonbinding basis to date, and we're working to finalize those agreements. And those customers are very diverse across our operational footprint, from steel to food processing to agriculture and everywhere in between. And I think what's unique about what we're doing is that we're being intentional about how we're designing our renewable program as opposed to incremental. And that intentionality comes across in the manner of diversification. So just as we would manage our retirement portfolios with diverse assets and securities in order to reduce risk and volatility and increase returns, that's what we're doing in renewables. And so we've gone after a variety of technologies: wind, solar, battery storage. We've gone after a variety of jurisdictions. We're buying renewables in multiple states, provinces in Canada. We have multiple in-service states, I could go on. But that diversification is what makes our portfolio look and generate returns that are commensurate with our historical return parameters. And so what's fascinating for me is that our customers are pulling us on this journey. This is not a push. Every day, I spend time talking to customers, and they are pulling us. And what gives us the right to help our customers decarbonize is that incredible scope and scale of our incumbency paired with these capabilities. And we have an opportunity to help deliver solutions for our customers. When heavy energy users, heavy emitters want to decarbonize, the question is, who do they call? And we want them to call the energy problem solvers and that's going to be us, TC Energy.
Francois Poirier
executiveTerrific. Thanks, Omar. Omar, I'll come back to you with the next question. And this is a question I get a lot from our shareholders and from the analyst community in terms of our confidence in our ability to maintain our traditional risk preferences through energy transition. So Omar, you're in a customer-facing role. You talked about our customers sort of pulling us along. What differentiates us in terms of our ability to continue to adhere to our risk preferences?
Omar Khayum
executiveYes. And I think this is really important for us, clearly. Heavy energy users, heavy emitters have a long-term need for decarbonization. And very simply, that means long-term contracts with customers that have superior credit. So our customers of the future from a credit profile, from a risk profile look tomorrow just like they do today. They may be different in nature, but their underlying risk preferences, and therefore ours, are going to be very consistent. You talked about the combination of our incumbency with new capabilities, and that means for us access to higher barrier to entry opportunities, which generates for us returns commensurate with our historical return profile and even, in some cases, superior. We're using that opportunity to build a low-carbon business, and we're doing it really in 4 verticals. The first is energy efficiency. The second is renewable power. The third is green feedstocks. And the fourth is carbon sequestration. I'll maybe dive a little bit deeper into each of these 4 areas to talk about how we're going to generate returns on investment while we decarbonize. And so in energy efficiency, that for us, as an example, looks like selling steam and power to industrial host, something we do today in our cogeneration business. And for us, the risk profile looks like heavy industrial customers who have superior credit but under long-term contracts. And we expect and believe that the need for steam for industry is going to increase as the energy transition manifests itself. And we'll be able to continue to extend the long-term contracts we have today and add new assets to our portfolio under long-term contract with superior returns. And that's because we can sell both steam and power. We're selling multiple solutions at the same time. In renewable power, I talked about earlier, we've sold a gigawatt of renewables, let's say, to third-party customers. We expect to expand that program as time goes on. And interestingly and importantly, the gigawatt is all with investment-grade customers that are very heavily existing incumbent customers of our existing systems. So we expect to be able to take an intentional approach to designing our renewable portfolio. And that intentionality around diversification is what allows us to generate returns that look very much like you see today from us on a long-term contracted basis. In green feedstocks, for us, that looks like renewable natural gas, it looks like hydrogen investments. And the corollary I would provide for those areas of investment are the LNG business. We believe that renewable natural gas and hydrogen look like they're underpinned by creditworthy customers. In fact, you mentioned earlier our ability to help the transportation sector decarbonize. We've partnered 2 with trucking manufacturing companies, Nikola Motors and Hyzon Motors. Ultimately, the creditworthiness of those investments are read through to their customers, the people that are buying and using hydrogen and fuel cell trucks. And we believe the return profile of our LNG and renewable natural gas investments are going to look very similar to that of LNG -- RNG, excuse me. Yes. And finally, carbon sequestration. So you mentioned the Alberta Carbon Grid, the business model there looks like our traditional business. It's long-term contracts, fee-for-service business model that allows us to provide a tolling solution to our customers for decarbonization. So we believe that the risk profile is very consistent with where we've been. Our customers are pulling us along this journey, which is fascinating, and we'll be able to generate returns very commensurate and/or superior to where we've been today.
Francois Poirier
executiveThank you, Omar. Roland, risk preferences and technology. So what's your perspective on the question?
Roland Muwanga
executiveYes, absolutely. I think when I hear Omar talk about delivery to the customers, safety and reliability are the 2 things that come up in my mind. So when you think about these commodities, whether it's hydrogen or CCUS, safely delivering those commodities are important. These commodities in industrial states are typically considered hazardous commodities. They're typically stored, transported in a high-pressure environment. Our natural gas, our crude oil that moves through our system that we store today is managed in the same manner. So the skill sets around managing the management systems around it, hazardous high-pressure commodities, we have that capability in-house today. We're working on how we translate that to ensure that we can deliver on what Omar just talked about here in a safe and reliable manner to meet the growing needs of energy demand.
Francois Poirier
executiveTerrific. Roland, I'll come back to you with the next question. What technology changes are required for a successful energy transition? And how do we assess the commercial viability of those technologies?
Roland Muwanga
executiveSure. So technology excites me. And when I think through technology, what's important is commercial viability and the ability to scale. The landscape in this area is vast. There's a number of technologies out there being positioned for decarbonization of various industries. And we need to think through where are they at in the maturity scale and how long might it take before they make sense for commercial viability for decarbonizing our asset base or our customers' assets? So what you see on the plot up there is a standard technology maturity S curve. You have things on there such as small modular reactors. So we see them still about 10 years out. There's a bit of a regulatory process that needs to be worked through before they get up the curve to that commercial viability. One of the things we need to ask ourselves is how do these technologies respond to customer needs? So you move further up the curve, you see something like pyrolysis. So for those who don't know, it's a form of hydrogen production in the emergent form, whereby you take methane, which is something we move today, and you decompose it down into your carbon and hydrogen stream. So you get the useful hydrogen. And the unique thing with the carbon now is it's not in a gaseous state, it's typically in a solid state and you can manage it a lot more -- in a lot more of a manageable format. So you may use that to provide small amounts of hydrogen to your customers if they look to utilize it for blending, or we may look to use it to run as a fuel in our compressor units. Now the other important thing to look at when we look at the technology landscape is, for fossil fuels, to continue to play the role they play today as an affordable, reliable energy source, decarbonizing them is important, lowering their carbon footprint is important and a number of technologies provide that opportunity. You see on their localized carbon capture, so that's something we're monitoring its maturity on. You see industrial scale CCUS hubs, so that's something Omar spoke a bit about. It's available today, but it's not available to scale today, and we look to be part of that story. The last thing I'll talk about here is we are proactively monitoring the space. We want to be the first to know of a technology when it's commercially viable. And part of being successful at doing that isn't just monitoring it, but actively participating. One example of how we're doing that is we're making strategic small bets where it makes sense with technology we've deemed viable -- commercially viable in the near term. An example of that is our recent investment with Carbon Clean. Now they're a U.K.-based firm, they provide carbon capture technology. They've been doing that since but 2009, and they have demonstrators and carbon capture for large industrial scale emitters since about 2015. Our particular interest with them is they also have a more modular, smaller unit that looks to be cost-effective to capture the type of CO2 emissions that come off our compressor units. So the neat thing here is now by -- through this investment, we're being active. We won't only get to monitor, we'll be able to look under the hood of this technology as it matures and think through how it can be a lever for our decarbonization efforts.
Francois Poirier
executiveAnd in fact, the synergy there is that Carbon Clean sees us as a potential long-term customer at scale once the technology has been proven up, right?
Roland Muwanga
executiveYes, exactly.
Francois Poirier
executiveOkay. That's terrific. Okay. One last question for each of you. And Omar, I'll start with you. What gets you excited about TC Energy being a leader in building a low-carbon business?
Omar Khayum
executiveWhat excites me, and this will be unsurprising, is the opportunity to help our customers decarbonize. We have just an incredible opportunity to do so. I'll give you an example, different than the ones I've already shared in how we're providing new solutions using our incumbency and our capabilities to access higher barrier-to-entry opportunities. And one example in which we're doing so is our offering for 24/7 green power in Alberta. We're providing a round-the-clock green firm power product in Alberta. And I'll take you behind the curtain a little bit for how we've done that. What we've done is we've entered into PPAs, where we're buying 300 megawatts of wind power from an EDPR wind facility that will come online next year. We're buying a 20-megawatt PPA off of the solar facility, which I'm happy to announce will come online this week. We're self-developing our own 75-megawatt solar facility in Alberta. And we're self-developing a 75-megawatt pumped hydro facility in Alberta. Now what we've done is put all that together. Think about this. These are combinations of trading transactions on the PPA side and hard assets. And we've combined those into one portfolio. We've put wind and solar and pumped hydro together. And what that's allowed us to do is create something that is larger than the individual parts. Putting that intentional portfolio together offers us an ability to -- allows us to offer a 24/7 power product to the marketplace. And importantly, it will be under a long-term contract with our customers. We're finding customers that want that product in industrial space and the return profile is well within our traditional return parameters, if not superior.
Francois Poirier
executiveSo in fact, we've taken -- if you look at each of the component parts of that transaction, they sell into merchant markets of various forms and you've combined them together to create a long-term contracted fee-for-service-based type of opportunity.
Omar Khayum
executiveThat's absolutely right. That's what's special about our capability set in this space.
Francois Poirier
executiveRoland, how about you?
Roland Muwanga
executiveSure. Yes. I mean I spoke earlier about technology. And I think the fact that we are making small strategic bets in technology really excites me. But on top of that, it's the employees that are allowing us to make those small strategic bets. So we have employees in this space, when I talk to them, they have such a huge passion for what we're doing here. That really energizes and excites me. And they really are capturing what we're looking for, which is energy problem solvers. I take that one step further, though, Francois. When I look at also the employees we're looking to bring in, so we've talked about CCUS and hydrogen. I recently had a couple of postings out for individuals who are knowledgeable in that space. And the resumes I got were utterly amazing. I got upwards of 100 resumes for each of those postings. And when I got to speak to some of them, the passion and excitement they had in the space, and on top of that to work with TC Energy, was fantastic. They see us -- they see our incumbency and they see that as the opportunity to really drive and grow in this space. So bringing all that together, I think we're going to truly be able to make those bets and truly lead in the space, and I'm frankly excited.
Francois Poirier
executiveTerrific. Well, Omar and Roland, thank you very much for spending time with me this morning. And I'll now introduce Patrick Muttart, who recently joined TC Energy as our Senior Vice President of Stakeholder Relations.
Patrick Muttart
executiveThank you, Francois, and good morning, everyone. I'm excited to be with you this morning for this inaugural event, especially in person after everything we've all gone through over the last couple of years, it's great to see all of you in person. Given recent geopolitical events, the importance of balancing energy security and energy transition has never been more critical. In fact, it's one of the greatest challenges and opportunities of our time. And as you, as professionals, focus on incorporating ESG into your investment decisions, I know that you understand the importance of balancing profit with purpose. Our team of energy problem solvers understands that, too. And as we work to build the energy system of the future, we recognize the importance of working together in common cause to enable continued access to safe, reliable, affordable and sustainable energy. And we believe this makes it a very exciting time to be working in this space, and for me to be leading the stakeholder relations function for TC Energy. Recognizing the North America-wide footprint of our operations, Canada, the U.S., Mexico, my focus is on delivering a truly North American approach to stakeholder engagement. And this means developing practical solutions that make a real difference for people and communities and in delivering long-term shareholder value. We've added local expertise in key areas and are aligning resources across our entire footprint, across all 3 countries. For TC Energy, all stakeholders matter. And by that, I'm talking about communities, indigenous and tribal groups, governments, customers, unions, industry, faith leaders, the public and the media. And of course, understanding the interest of our shareholders as owners is also vital and that's why we're here. The demand for energy is growing. And as Francois noted, the scale and flexibility of our existing infrastructure gives us an extraordinary opportunity to lead the energy transition and to bring people along with it. And while I'm new to TC Energy, this company has a long and proven history of developing strong relationships, and we are building on that. Our people across this huge footprint actually live and work in the communities where we operate. And in many of these communities, we are the largest single taxpayer. Having people on the ground helps us to identify opportunities to deliver real tangible benefits. And in keeping with this, I'd like to talk about 3 keys to our success, 3 keys which underpin our approach. First and foremost, is early and direct engagement to understand local priorities, local needs with a view to achieving equality and fairness. What we've learned is it's important to listen first. Secondly, working with communities to deliver social and economic benefit through alignment on shared interests and goals. And third, demonstrating that we're in it for the long haul, developing meaningful partnerships for the long term that contributes to the global good. I'll start by acknowledging the world is changing. Equality, fairness, inclusivity, diversity, these are more than just buzzwords. These are values that are shaping and influencing how people view energy. In a truly sustainable energy future, no one is left behind. All people and all communities should have a voice in the development of energy projects and to work to achieve equitable opportunities to participate and benefit from them. Our goal is to develop energy solutions in a just and equitable manner that brings shared prosperity for people and communities. An example of this in action is the Virginia Reliability Project, or the VRP. This 48-mile pipe replacement project on our Columbia Gas Transmission system in the U.S. uses low emission, environmentally friendly, dual-drive compressor technology and enhances reliability and efficiency on our system. From the outset of this project, our team has sought to understand community expectations around fair and equitable treatment from an industrial partner. As part of that, an official environmental justice analysis was completed and used to align and tailor our outreach, and we will continue to adjust our approach as we learn from the feedback, which we receive. To date, our teams on the ground have visited more than 400 businesses with proximity to the project route, and we have reached out to more than 250 faith leaders. We've had one-on-one conversations with elected officials and with representatives from the NAACP and the Urban League. We've learned that being involved upfront isn't something that typically happens with other projects in the region, and this reflects our new approach. And in working with communities, we aim to hire a local and diverse workforce that is reflective of the people who live in that part of Virginia. Building trust is translating into vocal support from respected leaders like Lamont Bagby. He says it best, "Direct investments like this project make a real difference in underserved communities." That is the essence of environmental justice. So public expectations are changing. We get that. We've learned, and it impacts how we interact with all stakeholders, and this will continue to evolve over time as well. We know that our continued success hinges on it. A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of spending some time in Mexico with colleagues and stakeholders. And I'm incredibly proud of the work that our people on the ground at TC Energia are doing. I think as most of you know, the social, economic and environmental challenges in Mexico are unique. And to give you one example, this past summer, a municipality in a mountain range in Central Mexico was heavily impacted by flooding. This caused the collapse of a metal bridge in a local community, a bridge which was a critical connector for the people in the region. Through a donation agreement, TC Energia provided a USD 75,000 grant to support the rebuilding of damaged infrastructure, including the engineering surveys for the construction of a new long-term bridge, a new long-term solution. Innovative solutions like this, practical solutions like this, grounded in the needs of local communities strengthen our relationships and actually enable ongoing operations for the long term. And this is just one example of how we are aligning our interests and goals in contributing to shared prosperity and healthy communities. It's humbling to see how such tangible benefits come when we collaborate with people and communities. We're continuously evolving our approach, building on our success and what we've learned through decades of major project development and sustainable operations. I'll turn now to the role our assets and operations can play as a force for global good at a time when more and more people are thinking about the global aspects of energy. Not only are we moving the natural gas that's displacing higher-emitting coal across North America, as Francois pointed out, our critical energy infrastructure assets are connecting North America's premier basins to LNG export facilities. The Coastal GasLink project will be the first direct path for Canadian natural gas to reach global markets and could reduce global GHG emissions by 60 million to 90 million tonnes per year. Talk about energy problem solving at a time when the world is looking for these solutions. Equally important are the nation-building aspects of this project. The signing of option agreements for 10% indigenous equity ownership for gas project was a significant milestone and it's an important step on the path to true partnership with indigenous communities and to advancing reconciliation in a very, very real way. The level of support, involvement and participation of indigenous communities and local communities is unprecedented. And together, as business partners, we have an opportunity to learn, to grow and to change the way our energy system is developed. We're proud of the relationships we've built, and we are committed to co-creating value for indigenous communities. To conclude, I want to emphasize that our approach is not one size fits all. It can't be on a continent like North America, so many different communities, different people, different needs. Our focus is on engaging early and upfront to align on shared goals and interest with all stakeholders so that we can develop solutions to our collective energy challenges in alignment and, ultimately, to deliver social and economic benefits in partnership with people and communities that contribute to the global good. With that, I'll invite up my colleague, Tiffany Murray, Coastal GasLink's Director of Indigenous Relations to join me for a deeper dive.
Patrick Muttart
executiveWelcome, Tiffany.
Tiffany Murray
attendeeThank you, Patrick.
Patrick Muttart
executiveThank you for coming in from Vancouver.
Tiffany Murray
attendeeHappy to be here.
Patrick Muttart
executiveSo Coastal GasLink, CGL, big project, largest infrastructure project in Canada and a big story in the news. Canadian media, American media, international media, online, off-line, a lot has been said, a lot has been written about this project. But you are there on the ground, working with the team, working with communities, working with indigenous groups. What's actually happening? Where are we at?
Tiffany Murray
attendeeSo a great question. I think most importantly, it's what you see in snippets in the news is not necessarily reflective of what is actually happening on the ground. Most importantly, it's the strength of our relationships that I reflect on for the project. Across the whole route, we have very strong relationships with all of the indigenous and local communities. And through that, we've been able to establish really strong partnerships that continue to evolve, which has been really exciting to see. We have 20 agreements with the indigenous communities, and we've continued to see how this project is benefiting people on the ground every day. An example of this is, to date, we have awarded over $1.1 billion in subcontracting opportunities to indigenous communities, which is really exciting to see people on the ground building the project and seeing how that is contributing back into the local communities. In addition, as I say, these partnerships have continued to evolve. And so currently, we have 3 of our prime contractors on the project who have now partnered with indigenous communities, again, to build the pipeline in their traditional territories, and that includes with Wet'suwet'en nations, which is really exciting. And that construction is really about to kick off. And I should say, we're over 60% complete in the construction of the project. So there's a lot of work that's happened on the ground thus far. In addition, we've invested over $3 million in education, skills training really to ensure that communities again are out there. They are getting the opportunities and that we have that skilled workforce, both for today and for the future when we ultimately go into operations. Another example that I'm really proud of. We work with a community called the Nak'azdli Whut'en First Nation. And we have heard for many years the importance of salmon to this community and to many, many indigenous communities. So we partnered with them and funded 5 mobile fish hatcheries. And just last week, our team was out there with the community at a community celebration on the ground, where they were able to release back 60,000 salmon fry or thereabouts back into the local rivers and had trained 8 Nak'azdli members to work at these fish factories. So I think what I really reflect on is that there are real opportunities that are happening. People are benefiting every day. And I have the privilege of getting to be out there, have a lot of these relationships and get to see it. Just last week, one of the team members was out at a community meeting and a man came up to him to thank him. And they started chatting and he reflected that and shared that he was not on a great path in his life and was struggling and was able to get a job working on CGL. And through this job, he said it just has completely changed the trajectory of his life. And now he's reconnected with his daughter, reconnected with his family and with his culture. So hearing stories like that get me quite excited because it's one example of so many of how this project is making a difference on the ground every day.
Patrick Muttart
executiveThat's great. Thank you. The indigenous equity framework that we've talked about, this is a big deal and it impacts a range of communities with an incredible amount of diversity across those communities. Something like this doesn't just get pulled together overnight. What was the process, the steps involved in getting from concept to execution?
Tiffany Murray
attendeeIt's really been a journey, one that started about 10 years ago now when we started this project back in 2012. And I say that because that's really when the relationships with the community started. So we established our relationships, engaged, and ultimately, that led to having agreements with 20 nations across the corridor. And that has really set the foundation for the partnerships that we have with the nations. Then back in 2019, we heard from these nations that we have agreements with, that they also had an interest in being equity owners in the project. And for us, certainly, we saw the value of that, the importance of continuing to evolve our relationships, evolve our partnerships and continue to build more on the alignment and common purpose of wanting to be building and operating this project together. So we took that away, and that's where we ultimately work together with the communities on the 10% equity option agreements that we now have in place. We -- it was a process of a couple of years, where we worked very closely with the communities, with their advisers. They gave tremendous feedback, many great ideas that ultimately evolved into the option agreements that we have today. It was an absolute process of collaboration. But I think what was really great through that process is you do have this sense of common purpose and alignment of what you're trying to achieve, and that gave the space to have sometimes really difficult conversations, interesting creative conversations and all of that has really helped to continue strengthening the relationships that we have. So ultimately on March 8 this year, it was very exciting, not only because we were signing the equity option agreements but it was the first time we were back in person for a long time with the nations, and we were able to sign those -- it's 2 option agreements with 2 entities currently representing 16 of the 20 nations. And now we will continue working forward with the nations. Those options will be exercisable just after commercial and service. So it's been a great example, and I think, for us, it's wonderful to see that alignment and to see how together we can continue to advance reconciliation.
Patrick Muttart
executiveSo we're in it together for the long haul.
Tiffany Murray
attendeeAbsolutely.
Patrick Muttart
executiveThat's great. So the project, this massive project, Canada's largest infrastructure project, is now about 65% complete. Taking stock of where we're at, looking back, what are some of your key learnings? And looking ahead, what's next?
Tiffany Murray
attendeeI think one of the big reflections for me is that the space in indigenous relations is always evolving. And certainly, over the last decade, we've seen an enormous amount of change in this space, and we have to change with that. So being open to ideas, to building on what you have and certainly not taking that for granted is really important. And we've had so many great ideas coming from the communities that have continued to change how we're actually building the project every day and how we're planning from an operations perspective. One example of that is we created a program back in 2020, it's called our Community Workforce Accommodation Advisor Program, CWAA Program. And this was created out of feedback from communities where they were saying to us, we're going to have thousands of workers out on the ground in our communities every day and we want to make sure that they're respecting our culture, our people, there's an opportunity to share and to learn about the nations that we work with and to make sure it's respectful and safe. So we created this program where we have indigenous advisers who are living and working in all of our workforce accommodations across the project. And they have that opportunity to share with the workers every day about their communities, cultures, put on programming and activities. And it's been really successful and I think has really helped foster safe, respectful and open environment in the workforce accommodations. And we've now seen that program being implemented on other TC projects as well. Another reflection that I have is the importance of relationships at all levels. So whether that's on the ground with communities and the workers, all the way from the leader to leader level. And through the project, we've recognized the importance of that and set up what we now call our Indigenous Leaders meetings. It's really a forum. And it came through some of the challenges and adversities that we were having, we recognized the need to really bring people together and have a space to have that dialogue very candidly. So we have these meetings where we bring chief counselors, our leadership and the project together on a very regular basis and have a forum where it's -- share information, hear from the communities and hear about what's important and problem solve together, frankly. And one of the things I've seen through that is, over time, you've seen, not only our own relationships be strengthened with the communities but the relationships amongst one another, which has been really special actually to see the comradery and just how people are working so well together on the project. So that's been really exciting. So overall, I think what we've learned through Coastal GasLink thus far and continue to learn is really helping us apply that elsewhere across TC Energy's footprint as well, taking on the best practices and seeing the opportunities to continue building out our projects, and again, really advancing reconciliation with indigenous communities.
Patrick Muttart
executiveGreat. Tiffany, thank you very much. Best of luck for the rest of Coastal GasLink as we get this thing done and work to provide some real benefits to our customers in Asia.
Tiffany Murray
attendeeGreat. Thank you.
Patrick Muttart
executiveI'll now turn it over to Joel and Dawn, who will lead a fireside chat about talent and diversity.
Joel Hunter
executiveSo thank you, Patrick. First of all, it's really nice to see everybody in the room today. It's hard to believe about 2.5 years since we were last here for our Investor Day back in 2019. So again, great to be back in person here today. I want to introduce Dawn de Lima, who is our Executive Vice President of Corporate Services and is our Chief Inclusion and Diversity Officer. Dawn joined TC Energy right in the middle of COVID in January of last year. And I have to say, under Dawn's leadership, the amazing job her team did in not only making sure that we have the proper technology as we worked from home or in our basements or where have you, but also really ensuring the well-being of our employees. So Dawn, really a big thank you, first of all, before we start today for all that you and your team have done through a very difficult time.
Dawn de Lima
executiveVery, very generous comments. And you know as well as I that was most definitely a team sport to get through the pandemic. But thank you, Joel.
Joel Hunter
executiveSo Dawn, we're here to talk about talent and diversity today. So the first question I have for you is how are we shifting our approach to reflect evolving employee expectations and to attract and retain top talent?
Dawn de Lima
executiveYes. Maybe I'll start with we learned quite a bit about ourselves and about our employees as we managed through the pandemic. We learned that our employees are very resilient and very reliable. And we also learned the importance of creating regular connection between our employees and our leaders. So we're taking some of our learnings and applying it today and will continue in the future. So what are we doing? Well, we're using technology to push out pulse checks for our employees. This allows our leaders to get real-time feedback from our employees on what is working, what's not working, where they need some help. We've increased the number of employee town halls that Francois runs. And we use the feedback from one town hall to shape and inform the agenda for the next town hall. The executive team, along with Francois, have taken very much a ask-me-anything approach. So we're really encouraging our employees to ask very, very difficult questions in these open forums. And what does this do for us? It allows us to really increase transparency across the organization, which ultimately builds trust. It helps us to continue to evolve our psychological safe workplace with the ultimate goal of ensuring that our employees are comfortable bringing forward ideas, bringing forward concerns and feeling comfortable to ask what needs to be addressed and get really straight answers. One of the other observations we have is as much as people adapted to working from home, the need for face-to-face contact is critical. And our employees are craving it, and our leaders are craving it. So the executive leadership team is spending much more time doing drive-bys or walkabouts in the corporate buildings. They're having many town halls, coffee sessions, luncheons with the purpose of ongoing engagement to ensure we have that circle of feedback from our employees. We also do quite a bit of site visits. You heard both Francois and Patrick Muttart talk about Mexico. I was in Mexico with them just a couple of weeks ago, where we visited some of our large compressor stations at Altamira and [indiscernible] And I have to say, and Francois touched on this, when we are with our employees in the field, we feel what they bring to work every day, that pride, that passion, that professionalism. They are highly engaged and they want to do an exceptional job. So a visit like this allows us to have a conversation with our employees, to share ideas and exchange information. But more importantly, it really opens up the lines so our employees can tell us what they need to do their job safely and efficiently and with integrity. So this is really about listening, learning and adapting, and we're going to keep doing that. Now like most organizations, we also listen to our workforce. And because office employees worked from home for 2 years and got used to that, they really wanted more flexibility. So we've introduced a hybrid work model. And we went hybrid because it allows employees to have the flexibility that they're craving but really still allows us to have that connectivity with our people so that we can collaborate face-to-face, that we can innovate face-to-face, and we believe that has struck the right balance for both the employees and for the business, Joel. Really, at the end of the day, this is all about evolving a culture and changing a culture to meet the new needs of society and our business. And through pandemic, we observed our employees in a very different lens as I'm sure most of you did. We saw our employees when they work from home, they worked from their kitchen, their dining room, their bedroom, their basement. We saw them manage work with pets, with children, very young children, teenagers, aging parents. We saw them fight through illness as many of them had COVID, and yet they continue to show up day after day to help us to deliver against our commitments and our goals. So with that lens and that insight, again, it heightens the importance of enhancing a psychologically safe work space. So there are some things that we are actioning to ensure that we continue this progress. The executive team has participated in several workshops, and these workshops have been professionally led, on mental health and unconscious bias training. This is to ensure that we, as an executive team, actually understand the importance of psychological safety and how this really helps to develop a very inclusive and competitive and psychologically safe workforce. We really want to be the best that we can be as an employer and as leaders. All of our leaders across the organization will also participate in mental health training between now and the end of the year. Not only does that enhance our leaders' knowledge but it allows them to better facilitate some much-needed discussions, many of these discussions that are happening right now. And finally, and I think the most important thing we've done is we have a group of volunteer employees who are our mental health champions. These individuals bravely and willingly share their stories, their personal stories about some of their challenges. So this normalizes the conversation for us, and it really ensures that we're all in this together, and we're making great progress with that. Now finally, I want to link all of this to attraction as well. So creating a culture that is inclusive, creating a culture that allows people to show up every day and be themselves and allows them to really expand and take ownership of their role and contribute to the organization also builds an external reputation. We know that TCE is a great place to work, and we want to keep that. We want our current employees, these strong employees to stay and we want an environment that other -- that attracts other people to come into. So in addition to ensuring that we do have the right environment, we do quite a bit of work to continue to attract new people that we need. So we use market research. We engage with top talent in different communities with face-to-face discussions. We partner with educational institutions and are joining new organizations. So for example, we are proud sponsors and partners of Pride at Work Canada and the Greater Houston LGBT Chamber of Commerce. These associations provide us much needed resources and information, and this helps us to expand our diverse workforce.
Joel Hunter
executiveSo Dawn, a really great overview of how we're attracting and retaining our talent. To kind of build off of that, how are we making sure that our people are empowered and prepared for energy transition?
Dawn de Lima
executiveYes. This is near and dear to my heart, Joel, because this is really about development. And Joel and I have had a lot of discussions about how do we -- when do you develop internally and when do you bring in some new blood to change things up a little bit. But we do know as society evolves and as our company evolves, so too will the skills and capabilities that are needed to ensure our continued success in the future. So the HR team is partnering with the business units to identify the core competencies that we need to drive our success. And in the background, we're also assessing the talent pipeline of our internal employees to figure out what skills they have that are transferable. In addition, we believe development of our people is critically important. So through formal and informal education and training, cross-functional moves, exposure to projects, we are also building the internal capabilities that we need for the future. And then you need to balance that, as I mentioned, with external. So there are times when an organization needs to go to the market and bring in a different perspective, a different skill set that we don't have today, but then we can build off. And a great example of this are the 2 gentlemen that were sitting up here a few moments ago, Roland and Omar. When we stood up our energy transition and origination team to create a unified approach and strategic approach to energy transition, we knew we needed the blend. So Roland has been with the company, I think it's over 9 years. So his company knowledge and his institutional knowledge have been an invaluable asset to the build of this team. And you partner that with Omar, who's been here for just about 1.5 years, who brings an entirely new skill set in the origination space for us and an entirely new set of context and thinking. So the marriage of the existing skill sets and blending the new, makes a very, very powerful team, and we're seeing that in action. Finally, one of the things we really encourage our people to do, all of our employees, is to take ownership of their career trajectories. We encourage people to think about where they want to go, what their long-term career plans are. We encourage them to put up their hand for new roles, to try different aspects of different jobs. And we're happy to help with the appropriate training along the way. We do know that purposeful career planning leads to very strong succession plans, and we are very committed to building a deep pipeline of talent in every area of our organization, Joel.
Joel Hunter
executiveSo Dawn, we recently added innovation to our core values. What does this mean for us as a company?
Dawn de Lima
executiveYes. So first of all, I think it's really a fabulous step. I mean I would say, I've been with TCE just over 1.5 years, but there was a lot of innovation that was going on before I arrived. And we have a company of people that are very curious and are very committed to improving how we work. But for us, innovation means challenging the way that we've always done things and turning ideas into opportunities. So again, we're working with our leaders to ensure that we can create an environment where our employees can be curious and be comfortable being curious. We've asked our employees to challenge assumptions and challenge the status quo. And we really want them to generate new ideas and bring that to the table and not be shy about it. We're getting people comfortable with understanding it's okay to fail and it's okay to succeed. If you're going to fail, we prefer that we fail fast, learn from that and carry on. But it is really ultimately the generation of new ideas that is going to generate some great success for us in the future, Joel.
Joel Hunter
executiveSo last question here for you today, Dawn. How are we progressing toward our diversity and inclusion targets?
Dawn de Lima
executiveYes. So I think Francois said earlier when he was on the stage, that which gets measured, gets done. We certainly have put very specific targets out to the market and to our employees because we know the words are not enough. So some of these targets include 40% women in leadership roles, in corporate roles, by the end of 2025. At the end of April, we were already over 36%. We want 17% of minorities in leadership roles by the end of 2025. And to date, we are just over 14%. We rolled out this year some unconscious bias training. We just rolled it out a couple of months ago. We want 100% participation in that training. And currently, we have 98%. And what that tells us is that our people, employees and leaders alike, have an interest in learning and being engaged and being educated in this space. We also have a target of 30% women on our Board of Directors. And I'm really thrilled that last week, we announced the appointment of Cheryl Campbell, who is the fifth woman on our Board. And that allows us to supersede our target, we're at 38% of women on Board. But I will say that prior to the announcement of Cheryl, we were already at 33%, and we went a step further. So Cheryl is the fifth woman to join, and I think her skill set and background is going to be a great addition to our Board. So I'll just close with saying, Joel, that all of us, we know the executive team are in these discussions all the time. This is a collective effort, and we are working very hard across all business units to ensure that we meet these targets and more.
Joel Hunter
executiveWell, thanks, Dawn, for that great overview. So we're going to bring all of our panel members up here for the Q&A session that I will be moderating. As we bring everybody up on the stage here, please enjoy this 1-minute video here that we have. Thank you. [Presentation]
Joel Hunter
executiveThat's a great video, very proud to work for our company. As Francois mentioned earlier, it's unfortunate that Patrick Keys, our CSO, cannot attend today as he's feeling under the weather. And we wish him well, he's back in Calgary getting well. So I'm the moderator for today's discussion. As we -- we're going to go through now and address your questions. We're taking the questions here as they come up, whether you are in the room and from our virtual audience. [Operator Instructions] If you have a question in the room, just raise your hand, and we'll get a mic to you so that the webcast can hear the question as well. As we begin, I'll start with a question we've heard in discussions with our shareholders over the last few months. And Roland, actually, we'll start with you down at the end here. Regarding GHG emissions intensity, are you planning to develop near-term targets? And how are you tracking to your 2030 target?
Roland Muwanga
executiveYes. So we were methodolical (sic) [ methodological ] and strategic in the way we set our targets. Given the long-term nature of our asset operations, 2030 was a near-term target that made sense. As I mentioned earlier, the technology is available to meet our 2030 targets, and we're confident in our ability to do that. We'll certainly continue to monitor and evolve our target-setting approach and adjust it as it makes sense with what we learn as we progress here.
Joel Hunter
executiveThanks, Roland. And I believe we have a question from the audience here. Robert?
Robert Catellier
analystRob Catellier from CIBC. Thank you very much, everyone, for the comments today and the presentation. My first question is, I guess, best addressed to Francois. You acknowledged early on that you were very deliberate and maybe slower than your peer group in coming out with some of your targets. But the company does seem to have an eye towards eventually coming out with a net zero goal. So I'm curious as to what do you think as a management team and what might be the Board's perspective as to what needs to happen. What's the gating item before you can commit to a net zero emissions goal?
Francois Poirier
executiveThat's a great question, Robert. And I'll start, and I'll ask Roland to provide some comments. I think a few things need to happen. In order for proper penetration of lower carbon energy supply in our systems, it needs to be affordable, reliable and sustainable. So we look at a few signposts for that to happen. We need regulation to be supportive of us allocating capital and implementing our strategy. We need the technologies to become more cost competitive at scale. And thirdly, I think if we look beyond 2030 and our objectives, we need further technological advancements to occur. So things like hydrogen production and distribution at scale to address hard-to-abate sectors, things like small modular reactors being deployed in harder-to-abate sectors as well. So it's a combination of seeing regulation advance to allow us to deploy capital in addition to technologies advancing a bit further beyond existing technology, beyond existing capabilities. And it's that question of affordability and reliability that needs to be addressed. We know we can produce hydrogen through electrolysis today. We can produce hydrogen through using natural gas as a feedstock and pyrolysis and other technologies. But they need to move down the cost curve. And I think that's really the essential ingredient for us to see ourselves evolve beyond our 2030 intensity-based targets to a net zero approach. And Roland, I don't know if you have something you want to add there?
Roland Muwanga
executiveSure. The one build I have in your comment there is when we looked at the space, there's multiple pathways to date that this could evolve that. So with the technological advances, how those progress, how that cost curve comes down for the different ones, there's no clear answer today on which one will be the leader in that space. As such, committing to a technology today for that time line is a bit early for us. And so it really ties back into the technological advancements by some multiple pathways that we're still monitoring.
Francois Poirier
executiveI will add something to Roland's comment, however, Robert. And that's that it's new for this company culturally to decide to allocate capital this early on in investigating different technologies. We're not looking to be in the capture business or on the electrolysis manufacturing business, we're not going to take that kind of business risk. We talked about how important our risk preferences are. But we do see a first-mover advantage in being able to deploy technology at scale the instant we have visibility on it becoming scalable and cost-competitive. So we're throwing a bunch of lines in the water, if you want to use a fishing analogy, in a whole bunch of different directions, be it CCUS, carbon capture and a whole bunch of different variety of technologies because we want to be the first to know what works and by when. We have incumbency and we believe that the combination of investing in those R&D dollars and our footprint will allow us to achieve our mission.
Joel Hunter
executiveThanks, Francois. Thanks, Roland, for the answer. And thanks, Rob, for the question. We have another question here from the floor.
Andrew Kuske
analystAndrew Kuske, Credit Suisse. Maybe it's a two-part question. And the first part is really the low-hanging fruit that you have, if you think about like electrification, how much capital can go towards that and then the emissions impact associated with it. And then if we maybe call it pathfinder capital, you have a bunch of partnerships that are out there. But maybe the thing that's probably the most interesting in the near term is just on carbon capture, especially the hub concepts in Alberta. And that marries up very nicely with your footprint, but also with the oil sands reality and the duration of those assets. So how do you think about capital allocation with those 2 concepts in mind, just the low-hanging fruit? And then it's not that far out, maybe it's only 2, 3 years out. But how do you think about that from a dollar standpoint and then also carbon reduction in total?
Francois Poirier
executiveThanks, Andrew. I'll start with the Carbon Grid and then I'll ask Omar to provide some color on the size of the opportunity set on the renewable side. To me, the value in an initiative like the Carbon Grid, and I think you alluded to it, is addressing the terminal value questions around our assets. I don't see the investment being tens of billions -- opportunity for TC Energy being tens of billions of dollars associated with transporting and sequestering target. It's single-digit billions, low single-digit billions, I would say, over the course of the next decade or so. But it's a very important investment for us because it addresses the carbon competitiveness of our customers. And if we address the long-term viability and carbon competitiveness of oil sands production and natural gas production in the WCSB and, of course, also in the Appalachia and the other basins we serve, it gives us confidence and it gives you confidence, we believe, in investing with certainty of the useful life and usefulness of our infrastructure. And to the extent we can improve that carbon competitiveness, we think that there's a rising tide that lifts all boats from a terminal value perspective. So not necessarily all that significant from a capital allocation standpoint, but I think a massive issue to deal with from a terminal value standpoint. Omar, on the opportunity set on the renewable side, if you were to discuss that.
Omar Khayum
executiveYes, I'm happy to talk about that. I think the key for us in renewables is to be able to have a flexible and all-of-the-above approach. That's what allows us to best meet the customer need. And what that means for us is having -- as I gave an example earlier about our 24/7 product in Alberta, recall that was a combination of PPAs and hard assets. And I think that's what you should expect to see from us, ultimately, deployment of hard capital in combination with some credit that allows us to generate returns, again, commensurate with where we've traditionally delivered to you. And I think that combination is really what's key for us to enable to be nimble and agile to meet the customers' needs.
Francois Poirier
executiveSo you'll see us, Andrew, for example, our job here is to commercially sanction enough renewables to meet our objectives on our base Keystone system and also serve the needs that we've identified from our customer base. So that's north of 2 gigawatts and probably bigger. But it's going to be a combination of situations where we're just a PPA counterparty. Others where we are a PPA counterparty, but we may opt to acquire an equity interest in the project, let's say, somewhere between 25% and 50% because we're not in the spread business as a company, we're in the business of being long assets and generating cash flow from steel in the ground. And there are some circumstances where the best project -- and Omar talked about diversifying our portfolio, so the best project in the best location, maybe from a small developer who doesn't have the capital. And there, we might acquire the project in mid-stage development and -- on the equity outright and finish the development and then, ultimately, the construction of the project. So it will be a bit of a mixed bag. But again, with a focus on being as efficient with our capital as possible and making sure that we earn returns that are commensurate with the commitments we've made.
Joel Hunter
executiveThanks, Francois, and thanks, Omar, for that. And thanks, Andrew, for the question. I think we have another one here.
Robert Hope
analystRob Hope, Scotiabank. As you're well aware, linear infrastructure, large infrastructure are very difficult to get built. In Ontario, we're recently seeing First Nation partnerships for some large electrical transmission projects here, similar to what you've done with Coastal GasLink. So I'm just wondering, moving forward, how are you viewing partnership with First Nation groups or other communities as a way to get increased local buy-in and move forward some of these large and difficult-to-construct projects?
Tiffany Murray
attendeeI can take that one. Thank you for the question. I think what we've learned on Coastal GasLink is that importance in establishing the relationships very early, really understanding the interest of the community and finding those areas of alignment. I think as you -- when you do that, you really do hear from communities and understand how to both address concerns, but also where you can really leverage the opportunities and work together and partner. We did release our inaugural reconciliation action plan last year. And really a key theme around that is how we evolve our relationships with indigenous communities, and that includes looking at an equity framework for new projects as well. So really, we are looking at some of the examples on Coastal GasLink, where you do have a large linear project. It takes time and a lot of work with communities to establish those partnerships, but there's a lot of really great learnings there that we are applying elsewhere across the footprint to really ensure that we are advancing reconciliation, finding those opportunities and building partnerships with communities so that we can continue really expanding our work across the countries that we work in.
Joel Hunter
executiveThanks, Tiffany, and thanks, Robert, for the question. Linda?
Linda Ezergailis
analystLinda Ezergailis, TD Securities. First of all, thank you so much for hosting this in person, it's great to see everyone here today. I wanted to ask maybe a more specific question while I have the opportunity to hear from some people on the ground around the Alberta Carbon Grid. Specifically, what are the next milestones that we're waiting for? What are the gating factors, whether it's from a commercial standpoint, a policy standpoint, a technical standpoint, a partnering standpoint? What should we expect over the next while? And what might be the bottlenecks prospectively that might alter the course of the project?
Francois Poirier
executiveSure. Let me take that. Sure. Okay. Great question, Linda. And the Alberta government has gone through and is managing an auction process for pore space. So before you build the transportation network, you need to know the point of capture and the point of sequestration, right? So the first thing they've done is auctioned off pore space around the heartland area. All of us competed for acreage in those different areas. And now -- and that acreage was awarded. Now they're undertaking a second auction process for essentially the rest of Alberta, which would include the oil sands producing regions. And bids have been submitted on those -- in that process and we expect sometime this fall or at least sometime in the second half of the year for them to award that pore space as well. I think the Alberta government was very thoughtful in the way they conducted the process in that they recognized the costs to technically confirm the structural integrity and geology of the pore space would be very expensive. So they decided that the first step would be to award the acreage -- and by the way, TC Energy was awarded, I believe, the largest acreage of any of the applicants in that process. And then now as a second step, each proponent must confirm the technical viability of the acreage to achieve and maintain the integrity of the sequestration over a multi-decade period for all of the right reasons. So we're in that stage in the process now. I would call it something akin to a certification, if you will, or affirmation of that pore space. Once we've done that, then each of the companies who's been awarded those sequestration rights will be going out to emitters and those who are undertaking the capture activity to contract for a service for transportation sequestration service. And then, of course, once that's done, you know the point of capture and you know the point of sequestration, then you can work on developing the path from A to B, if you will. The thing that makes us very excited about our partnership with Pembina is as you look at the Alberta marketplace, between the 2 of us, we have pipelines that run across the vast majority of the province. And the assets don't only include the steel in the ground, the piece of pipe itself, which given the characteristics of the individual piece of pipe may or may not lend itself to repurposing. But the right of way itself has value. All of the surrounding infrastructure has value. So we feel we have a really competitive offering to solicit customers as part of that process. So step number one is to reaffirm the integrity of the sequestration. And then we're going to be out soliciting business to offer a transportation sequestration service, and we hope to be providing more clarity on the progress we've made on that front at our Investor Day later on this year. And then, of course, we're anxiously awaiting for the results of the second part of the auction process that the Alberta government will be announcing later as well.
Joel Hunter
executiveThanks, Linda.
Natasha Stromberg
analystNatasha Stromberg here from Mackenzie Investments. I just want to acknowledge what Francois said about the customer of the future is changing. In 10 years' time, it will look very different. Well, probably even now that customer is beginning to look very different. So a question, I think, really for Omar, on this. The liquid natural gas terminals on the Gulf Coast, who is your intended marketplace for that product? As we see the European continent decarbonizing very drastically, where do you see that product going in the future? And will there be a customer for you?
Joel Hunter
executiveDo you want to start?
Francois Poirier
executiveMaybe I'll start with an alignment. So our customer on our Coastal GasLink project is LNG Canada. And they are -- it's made up of a consortium of 5 global LNG companies, and they will be ultimately determining where the liquefied natural gas will be sold. Each of them owns a global portfolio of production as well as customers. And when you look at the location of the liquefaction on the West Coast of Canada, there is a transportation advantage to the Southeast Asian markets. And so that would be the logical destination for liquefied natural gas from the West Coast of Canada. We think of LNG as a global market and a global business. And so when we ask ourselves as a company and as Canadians, because we've had conversations with policymakers on this, how can we help alleviate the need -- the urgent need for LNG in Europe? Well, it is a global portfolio and adding capacity and supply off the West Coast into Asia does actually help alleviate the issue if it can displace someone in the Middle East, for example, who would otherwise be serving Asian markets who can now serve European markets. So that's a response at a high level. Omar, is there anything you want to add to that?
Omar Khayum
executiveYes. I would add that our ability and our efforts around decarbonizing our systems are really important value add, we believe, to the end-use customer in Asia and Europe. And so not only does the energy transition afford us an ability to decarbonize for the benefit domestically, but we believe that enhances the durability of our assets but also the marketability of the assets by which we deliver liquids and gas to international markets.
Benjamin Pham
analystBen Pham, BMO Capital Markets. I know you've mentioned like [ in the issuing ] to your compensation in the past on the senior executive side. And really interesting to hear about that being pushed down to your broader organization. I think that's what I've heard. So I'm curious of really how have you been or plan to motivate and encourage, especially retain employees as you convince them of your new ESG goals when you're going through this significant and gradual change in culture at TC Energy, energy industry? And really, when you have a much more diverse employee base, as I'm seeing in front of you, reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, like how has that path been there for TC Energy?
Dawn de Lima
executiveYes. Maybe I'll tackle that as best I can. So I'll start with just the compensation question. We know that to retain and attract employees, you still need to be competitive in terms of your compensation landscape. So we do the work annually to assess our compensation against our peers in the industry to ensure that we remain competitive. And when we think of compensation, it's not just the base salary, but we have to think of the entire compensation package, which is your annual cash, your bonuses, your pension, your benefits and your wellness programs, which are becoming more and more important to employees. And then beyond that, it really is about some of the things I talked about, creating a culture and an environment where people want to work and they want to stay with the organization and grow with it. So one of the things that we have been doing this past year during the town hall sessions is really explain to the employees the importance of our base and the base assets and the importance that the employees that manage the base mean to this organization, and they're critical to us to enable us to really grow. So we're not throwing the baby out with the bath water here, this is about evolving the business and expanding. So that is a really critical message for our employees. One thing that does light up our employees, I can say, when we spent quite a bit of time in the field. And Francois says to them outright, if you want a 30-year career with this company, it is there for the taking. And whether that's in the role you're in or if you want to diversify your own skill sets, and we're happy to help you do that where it's appropriate, there are going to be enormous opportunities. So we're sending the message that stability is still for the taking, if you want a long-term career and your ability to develop and advance in the organization. Now I think then we have to balance that again with the culture and what we're doing. We put enormous focus on continuing to enhance our psychological safety workplace. This is critical, and employees are demanding it. As we grow in terms of diversity of our workforce, we need to grow in terms of our understanding. And it is incumbent upon our leaders to really ensure that all of our employees can come to work, feel physically safe, feel emotionally and psychology (sic) [ psychologically ] safe, that they are comfortable to be who they are and that we embrace that because we want the ideas and we want the change. So I think as we evolve and change and as the industry evolves and changes, we're going to continue to listen and adapt, listen and adapt to meet the needs of our employees and at the same time, balance the needs of the business. So far, it's working. And I think this will be just an ongoing challenge. I'll just close with saying because we are known as a great place to work and our organization does have a good reputation, and any new people that have joined this organization, they can feel the energy. This we're going to carry on, right? But we know that this will require our leadership skills to evolve, our listening skills to evolve, and we have no problem right now when we go to the market to attract new skill sets in any area. So Roland referenced receiving hundreds of resumes. We are inundated. So I think we've got a good footprint, we've got a good base. And our role is to continue to encourage our employees to stay the course with us and to enjoy this journey. And we believe that there's room for everyone.
Robert Kwan
analystIt's Robert Kwan from RBC. So you've got -- can you talk about your key targets across E, S and G on one hand. And then on the other hand, though, you've got your financial targets, shareholder value and your risk preferences. Which of those ESG targets has been the most challenging for you in the near term? As you think out over the medium to longer term, which of those targets do you see as being the most challenging to meet at this point? And what do you do if you get to the point where it's not -- where they're just irreconcilable?
Francois Poirier
executiveYou want me to take that one?
Joel Hunter
executiveSure. I can chime in wherever.
Francois Poirier
executiveYes, and I'll invite our colleagues to chime in as well. Gosh, it's tempting to -- and in our conversations with our stakeholders, there tends to be a larger upper case E than the S and the G, and that's just not the way we choose to approach ESG. We invested quite a bit of time with you all today talking about some of the social goals we have, the importance of inclusion and diversity. We haven't talked much about governance, but I can tell you that our board processes are very well evolved around ESG. So I wouldn't say that any of the 3 are more important than the other, I would say because of the level of scrutiny around emission targets on greenhouse gas emissions, that we do spend quite a bit of time talking about those. And more capital dollars have to be devoted to achieving our emission reductions than some of the other initiatives around social and governance excellence, if you will. So those take longer to achieve. Energy infrastructure is deployed and has a useful life of 40 or 50 years. But as Roland pointed out, the technology exists today for us to achieve our 2030 intensity goals. So it's just a matter of deploying capital in a way that balances some of our other objectives around our financial goals as well as our talent. Our goals will continually evolve, Robert. If market expectations and technologies evolve, such that a 30% reduction by 2030 is no longer a stretch or a big challenge and we need to set higher objectives, we're going to do that. Our goals are not static. They're going to evolve over time, not only on our emission reductions but on everything else. As Dawn talked about, diversity is important. The way -- decision quality is highly correlated to constructive disagreement, and you get constructive disagreement when you have different points of view around a decision table. You get different points of view around a decision table when you have individuals around that table with different socioeconomic backgrounds, race or gender or other factors. So we are going to continually push ourselves to set goals on all 3 of those aspects that are a stretch and that challenge us. And that's the kind of the culture that we want to espouse in the company.
Joel Hunter
executiveI don't think I have anything further to add to that, Francois, it's a great answer. I think it's across the board. I think you heard it today here, Robert, whether it's the E, the S and the G, where we've got a clear pathway to achieve these targets. And certainly, as Francois said, we spend a fair amount of time on the E side. It will require a fair amount of capital investment for us going forward, but we're feeling very, very comfortable with all the targets that we've established and how we're going to -- and the pathway to achieving them. I do think we have one -- time for one question. Okay. So we just have one here on the iPad here. I think I'll put this over to Roland and maybe Omar. And the question is, do you see your investments in clean tech innovation funds and companies like Carbon Clean as idea incubators? Or do you view them as scalable opportunities over time to provide support to your targeted IRRs?
Roland Muwanga
executiveSure. I could start on that one a bit. We are looking for the ones who are scalable. Like we said, we're looking for commercially viable technologies that can scale. And so certainly, as we look to investment options like Carbon Clean and any others that are out there, we're actively seeking that capability. Particularly technology I talked about with Carbon Clean's capture technology that's advantageous potentially for our asset base, it could scale across whether it's our compressor units or other compressor units. And so looking under the hood, get a much better sense of that scalability and that's what we're truly interested in with these funds and emerging technologies.
Omar Khayum
executiveI'll add. We have the thing that is scarce. We have the incumbency as a function of our assets. We have customers that are partners, long-term partners, and that is what enables us to scale technology. And so we see an incredible amount of opportunity, Carbon Clean's a wonderful example. But we'll see more of that, in my opinion, because we're bringing to the market the thing that very few people have.
Joel Hunter
executiveAll right. Well, thank you, panel, and thank all of you for joining us today. If we didn't get to your question, our Investor Relations team will reach out to you in the coming days with a response. And if you're looking for more ESG materials, please visit our website. So thanks again, everyone, and enjoy the rest of your day.
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