For more than 120 years, APS has powered Arizona’s homes, businesses and communities. Through this long history of distinguished service, we have built a deep connection with, and appreciation for the natural beauty of our state. As we continue to invest in the future, we fully understand our current and ongoing success is tied to the long-term health of Arizona. We will continue working hard to maximize the efficiency and profitability of our operations, while minimizing our impact on our natural world.

APS is a company built and operated for the long-term, which means we carefully consider the long-range impacts of all our business decisions. Ensuring the health of our communities, our economy and our environment is always top of mind when determining the best ways to run our company and invest in Arizona’s energy future.

- Ed Fox VP, Chief Sustainability Officer

Pinnacle West has a long-standing and unwavering commitment to environmental stewardship. In July 1994, APS became the first electric utility to join the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (Ceres), an independent, non-profit organization that promotes excellence in environmental stewardship. As a Ceres member, APS endorsed the Ceres Principles, a environmental code of conduct. The Ceres principles continue to be part of our APS Environmental Policy, and demonstrate our commitment to excellence in environmental stewardship.

In 2008, we took a significant continuous improvement step in our environmental program with the implementation of our new Environmental Information Management System (EIMS). This electronic EIMS will enhance our ability to identify, monitor, track, communicate and improve our environmental obligations and commitments across the company.

Our primary environmental issues are related to the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity to more than 1.1 million customers. While renewable generation is a significant focus for our future capacity resources, we will continue to employ generation resources from coal, natural gas and nuclear energy far into the future. In addition, we will continue to expand our transmission and distribution systems as we respond to our growing service territory by adding significant numbers of new substations and miles of electric lines. While this infrastructure is necessary to generate and distribute electricity to serve customers, it also creates a number of environmental issues and challenges, which we discuss in detail in this section of our report.