How “client-centricity” can contribute to the zero carbon transition: tailoring solutions for our customers

Companies and local authorities are now the first players to face the challenges of the energy transition. They must succeed in reconciling their economic challenges with the tangible actions for the climate demanded by civil society. In 2018, on the occasion of Imagine 2030, a collaborative dialogue with its stakeholders, ENGIE asked its customers how it could best support them in the face of these challenges. They wanted us to build affordable and simplified offers. And we listened.

Building a simplified offer

To make its offers easier to interpret, ENGIE has clarified its range of offers and is now focusing on 3 customer segments: cities and communities, industry and the tertiary sector. ENGIE has built an offer around three axes :

• Energy efficiency (“better efficiency”) to optimize the use of resources: this involves improving the efficiency and performance of our customers’ buildings, facilities and processes in terms of energy consumption, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, productivity and lifespan.
• Living environments (“better places”): this entails creating, improving and managing living and working places to make them more pleasant and more respectful of the environment. Our teams enhance the comfort and safety of buildings and industrial sites. In this way, ENGIE Solutions contributes to the creation of tomorrow’s industries, buildings, neighborhoods and cities, making them more resilient and better connected to their ecosystems.
• Greening energy (“Better energy”): the aim is to provide bespoke energy services that include the production, distribution, storage and supply of green and local energy (cogeneration, geothermal, wind, biomass, solar thermal/photovoltaic), in order to combine comfort, performance and the zero carbon transition.

In this area, power purchase agreements (PPAs) are a concrete tool for our customers: we offer long-term contracts for the supply of energy on demand, with a fixed price over a given period. This helps them protect themselves against price volatility and, by guaranteeing them energy from renewable sources, helps reduce their own carbon footprint. In 2019, ENGIE emitted 2.5 GW of corporate PPAs, five times more than in 2018.

As close as possible to our clients from the very beginning of their project

ENGIE offers its customers a new, global approach to enable them to make a successful zero-carbon transition. Alongside them, we build tailored solutions that we co-finance to make them affordable. Our teams are focused on offering:

• a detailed analysis of our customers’ needs and a thorough review of their energy use in order to drastically reduce their consumption.
• replacement of old equipment by smart and energy-efficient equipment.
• the supply of decarbonized energy on the basis of their consumption profile.

This approach, which is unique in the market, enabled us to achieve 11 to 14% growth in the customer solutions segment in 2019 in terms of operating income, with revenues of €19 billion¹.

This performance and the long-term contracts we have signed with entities around the world have been made possible by ENGIE’s unique profile. Thanks to its 160,000 employees, the Group possesses a wealth of skills that enables it to operate across the entire value chain.

“We offer a complete range of services, from the supply of green energy to the operation and maintenance of a site, including the design of technologies, when our competitors have only part of the solution,” wrote Franck Bruel, Executive Vice President in charge of the UK, NORAM and LATAM Business Units, in the magazine Investir.

A customer-oriented organization

We created ENGIE Impact in 2019 with the aim of providing the most effective response possible to the scale of our clients’ global demands. Based in New York, the new entity works with them to design a roadmap for a global zero-carbon transition and provides solutions at all levels of a company. ENGIE Impact is already working with 25% of Fortune 500 companies.

“Sustainability used to be a peripheral concern in the strategy of large companies, but now it’s becoming a central topic for CEOs,” explains Mathias Lelièvre, CEO of ENGIE Impact. “We have to change everything in the way we produce, work and interact with our customers. Our role is to make the zero-carbon transition a reality for everyone.”

To facilitate relations with our clients at a global level, we have also appointed Global Account Key Account Managers, who will only deal with one or two clients and will be their single point of entry. Through their knowledge of the client, they will be able to build tailor-made, long-term solutions with our teams.

Since January 2020, ENGIE has brought together all its entities based in France under a single brand. To create better visibility for our customers, ENGIE Solutions (€10 billion revenues) has 50,000 employees. A single brand to improve the clarity of our offers and pool our skills for the benefit of our customers.

integrated long-term contracts

Thanks to all these strengths, we are able to gain the trust of our customers over the long term. With the University of Iowa, we have committed to a comprehensive response to the energy challenges of the campus over a 50-year period. ENGIE will be responsible for operating, maintaining, optimizing and improving the utility systems on the university campus. We will focus on innovative solutions to reduce energy consumption and develop renewable energies, micro-grids, energy storage and other technologies for a sustainable campus.

We have signed a PPA to supply Microsoft with renewable electricity generated by wind farms operated by ENGIE. The agreement comes with an innovative provision that sets the volume and converts intermittent renewable energy into a continuous 24/7 solution that meets Microsoft’s energy needs.

In France, ENGIE Solutions will support the city of Angers to construct a green “smart city”. The aim is to use digital technology to speed up the ecological transition of the territory, optimize the organization of public services, manage resources more efficiently and facilitate and improve the daily life of the city’s residents. Through the complementary nature of our expertise, the installation of sensors and renovations, we expect to achieve energy savings of 66% on public lighting by 2025, a 20% reduction in the energy consumption of city buildings, smoother and easier traffic flow, and a 30% reduction in water consumption for municipal watering systems.

More articles about client-centricity, ENGIE-style.

¹  Source: ENGIE Leadership Event, December 2019