This year’s Sustainability Report stands apart from previous reports, in large part due to the global pandemic that has impacted our lives and our institutions. We’ve met this health crisis with compassion for those impacted and a focus on problem solving to ensure we provide continued service to our customers and our communities.

The COVID-19 pandemic created extraordinary challenges in our communities. We kept our focus on our customers and our employees, developing solutions to meet the needs of those most impacted by the pandemic. Our efforts spanned our business operations and our charitable giving, all with the goal of supporting our customers and communities in need and keeping our employees safe.

We have a critical role to play in ensuring that essential services such as hospitals, first responders, government and businesses have reliable service – and we’ll keep delivering on our promise to support our communities through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

2020 Business Overview Multifaceted Response to COVID-19: Supporting the Health and Well-Being of our Employees, our Customers and our Communities

During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, we began educating employees about the potential threat and provided training to help prevent its spread. We immediately enabled employees able to work from home to do so. For frontline personnel not able to work remotely, we quickly put in place protocols designed to separate and protect them. We also took immediate steps to protect the health of our employees and customers by suspending all non-emergency indoor work last spring.

As the first cases of COVID-19 began to emerge in our service territories, we conducted inspections and performed maintenance to protect electrical circuits that serve hospitals and other critical facilities and help ensure uninterrupted service.

COVID-19 has impacted our economy in devastating ways and imposed financial hardship on many of our customers. Our companies suspended shut-offs for nonpayment, as well as late-payment fees and security deposits. We communicated these measures to customers and encouraged them to reach out to our Customer Care team to make alternative payment arrangements reflecting their economic circumstance and to get help identifying supportive resources to assist them.

AVANGRID and the Avangrid Foundation committed $2.5 million to COVID-19 response and recovery efforts at the national, state and local levels. Our companies also donated 31,000 protective masks to hospitals in the areas where they operate. We continue to work with our regulators and community partners to find ways to ease the impact of the pandemic, particularly for our most vulnerable customers.

During the pandemic, ensuring the health and safety of our employees has been our primary focus and paramount to our ability to continue to safely deliver reliable electric and gas service to our customers across our operating companies.

We activated our emergency response and business continuity plans and worked with federal, state and local authorities to provide a coordinated response during this unprecedented crisis.