Report: Electric Utilities Show Gradual Increases in Sustainability Awareness and Support for Clean Energy Goals

According to the J.D. Power 2025 Sustainability Index electric utility customers are reporting increased awareness of their provider’s carbon reduction, clean energy and environmental initiatives. The data indicates a steady rise in awareness, though utilities still have further to go to achieve broader customer engagement.

“Customer awareness and support for electric utility sustainability efforts is on the rise, and that’s important because utilities will need their customers’ support if they are ever going to reach their clean energy and climate-related goals,” said Ramah Vaughn, director of utilities intelligence at J.D. Power. “Sustainability is more than just a buzzword or a marketing gimmick for electric utilities. Delivering on stated sustainability goals is core to the business strategies of these utilities and their efforts seem to be working — customers who are aware of their provider’s sustainability efforts report significantly higher satisfaction levels.”

Key findings from the 2025 index include:

Incremental increases in awareness and support for sustainability: 27% of electric utility customers say they are aware of whether their utility has declared a goal to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, up from 21% in 2024 and 19% in 2023. The overall Sustainability Index score for electric utilities evaluated in the study — based on customers’ awareness, engagement and advocacy for their local utility’s climate initiatives — is 37 (on a 100-point scale), up 5 points from 2024.
Sustainability scores highest in west and south: On a regional basis, overall sustainability scores are highest in the western and southern United States. On a state-by-state basis, Georgia (41), Michigan (41), Mississippi (41), California (40) and Florida (40) have the highest overall sustainability scores.
Higher awareness linked to higher customer satisfaction: Overall customer satisfaction is 296 points higher on average among customers who say their provider is doing more than other businesses on environmental issues.

Electric utility companies and cities evaluated (alphabetical order):
AEP, Alliant Energy, Ameren, Avangrid, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, CMS Energy, Con Edison, CPS Energy, Dominion, DTE Energy, Duke Energy, Duquesne Light, Edison International, Emera, Entergy, Evergy, Eversource, Exelon, FirstEnergy, L.A. Dept. of Water & Power, National Grid, NextEra Energy, OGE Energy Corp., Pacific Gas and Electric, Pinnacle West, Portland General Electric, PPL Corporation, PSE&G, Puget Energy, Sacramento Municipal Utility District, Salt River Project, Sempra Energy.

The Sustainability Index evaluates electric utility customers’ awareness, support, engagement and advocacy for their local utility’s climate sustainability programs and goals. It applies to the 35 largest U.S. electric utility companies and cities that each serve 500,000 or more residential customers. The 2025 index is based on responses from 113,006 business and residential electric utility customers and was fielded from May 2024 through May 2025.