1. Corporate Copywriting
PORTFOLIO
Table of Contents:
SoCalGas News: Give the Gift of Warmth
SoCalGas News: Spring Into Innovation
SoCalGas Natural Gas Vehicles Case Study: LA Metro
SoCalGas: Natural Gas Vehicles Case Study: Ryder
SoCalGas: Natural Gas Vehicles Case Study: LAUSD
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Give the gift of warmth
Caring customers like you have the power to provide
immediate aid and hope for those in need by helping less
fortunate members of our communities stay warm this
winter.
How it works
The Gas Assistance Fund enables local nonprofit agencies
to provide emergency bill payment assistance to seniors,
disabled individuals or newly unemployed with a one-time
grant for the amount of their gas bill (not to exceed $100).
Doubling your donation
The Gas Assistance Fund doubles the effect of your
donations through matching shareholder contributions. If
you donate $25, then shareholders will also donate $25.
Please make a contribution today!
.
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Give the Gift of Warmth
December 12, 2013 2:17 PM
3. NEWSSPRING 2013
Follow us on: Twitter Facebook | socalgas.com 1-800-427-2200 TDD: 1-800-252-0259
SPRING INTO INNOVATION WITH THE GAS COMPANYSM
NATURAL GAS:
DID YOU KNOW?
This spring customers of The Gas Company ask: Can we be financially savvy and make our world
cleaner and greener? The answer is yes! At The Gas Company, our renewable energy, energy-
efficiency, natural gas vehicles, and sustainability programs are leading the way for a cleaner, more
sustainable future. We are committed to the research and development of innovative environmental
technology, while being a responsible steward of our limited natural resources. As the nation’s largest
natural gas distribution utility, we actively minimize our impact on air and water quality, sensitive
habitats and natural resources.
It warms your home, cooks your food and is the
energy-efficient, clean-burning fuel supply for
local industry in Southern California. Natural gas
is the pride of The Gas Company: it is cleaner
and less expensive than gasoline or diesel.
But The Gas Company’s commitment to this
abundant and inexpensive, energy solution goes
way beyond the pipeline. Our customers, from
homeowners and tenants to fleet operators,
know they are saving money and helping the
environment when they make the switch to
natural gas. And, because they need a reliable
fuel supply, customers have come to rely on The
Gas Company’s technical expertise and natural
gas service for more than 140 years!
Did You Know That Natural Gas is
the Fuel of Choice for:
• Millions of residential customers of The Gas Company.
Natural gas provides residential customers with
cheaper, cleaner energy for heating their homes,
cooking their food, and running their appliances.
• Thousands of natural gas vehicle (NGV) owners
throughout the world. Ninety Eight percent of The Gas
Company customers surveyed state they are happy
with their decision to purchase an NGV.
• Passenger bus fleets throughout the world including
more than 2,250 Metro buses in Southern California
alone. Natural gas buses have enabled L.A.’s transit
giant to reduce cancer-causing particulates by
98 percent, carbon monoxide by 80 percent and
greenhouse gas emissions by about 150 metric tons
per day since switching from diesel to natural gas.
• More than 400 Los Angeles School District (LAUSD)
natural gas school buses. Natural gas buses have
enabled LAUSD to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions
by 2,595 metric tons, a 7.5 percent reduction, as of
2007.
• Commercial trucking fleets nationwide and throughout
Southern California. Natural gas trucks reduce vehicle
carbon monoxide emissions by 90 to 97 percent and
carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 25 percent.
5. LOSANGELESCOUNTYMETROPOLITAN
TRANSPORTATIONAUTHORITY
Moving people with Compressed Natural Gas (CNG)
With more than a million riders each day counting on their
buses being on time, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan
Transportation Authority (Metro) needs a clean, cost-
efficient, reliable fuel supply. That’s why its entire fleet of
more than 2,250 buses runs on CNG from the Southern
California Gas Company (SoCalGas®
).
Metro is the largest transit property in the United States to
switch fully to CNG. It is abundant, produced in the United
States, inexpensive, and clean-burning. The transit giant chose
SoCalGas because it needed a reliable, expert partner to
keep the tanks filled. “It’s a good, effective partnership and
an example of where our industry needs to be thinking,” says
John Drayton, Metro’s manager of vehicle technology, who
oversaw the transition from diesel-powered buses to CNG.
A billion miles with CNG
Metro started considering alternative fuels in the 1970s.
It studied and tried different options, including methanol
and ethanol, which turned out to be far too damaging to
bus engines. Then, in the 1990s, Metro bought hundreds
of CNG buses, creating the first large fleet of its kind in
North America.
“Natural gas is an incredible fuel stock, not just for Metro.
Our whole country needs to be looking at this. Number one,
it’s a very abundant, domestically-available fuel,” Drayton
says. “Secondly, it’s fuel that is inherently clean. The cleaner
the fuel coming in, the cleaner the (emissions) coming out.”
In early 2011, Metro passed its billionth mile on CNG-fueled
buses and retired its last diesel bus.
“Fortunately, over the last 15 years, we’ve been able to
see this technology mature and I don’t think the arguments
have ever been more compelling that natural gas is the best
alternative to diesel today in every respect and arguably
is a better solution for many applications than diesel,”
says Drayton.
A cleaner fuel for Southern California
Drayton, who grew up in Southern California, remembers
training with the Claremont High School track team at 6 a.m.,
because by the afternoons, smog alerts would keep the
athletes indoors. “You would just watch the brownish-gray
haze come up each afternoon,” he recalls.
Now the air in Los Angeles is remarkably cleaner, thanks in
part to the use of natural gas in Metro’s buses. By switching to
CNG, Metro has reduced cancer-causing particulates from the
bus fleet by 98 percent, carbon monoxide by 80 percent and
greenhouse gases by about 150 tons per day.
Clean-air incentives help offset costs
Metro’s reduction in its vehicle emissions has also helped
reduce some of its costs through air quality agency offsets.
Transition costs were defrayed in part as the federal
government helped pay for the new buses. And allowances
from SoCalGas meant that Metro didn’t pay a dime for
installation of its gas lines.
(Continued on back)
“We’re running the cleanest buses in the
world and we’re running them at a fuel cost
that’s about 30 percent of diesel.”
NATURAL GAS VEHICLES
Customer Case Study
7. RYDER: THE ROAD TO THE FUTURE AND CNG
Ryder System, Inc., a leading provider of commercial
transportation and supply-chain management solutions,
helps customers throughout North America, Europe and
Asia operate more efficiently for their bottom lines and
for the environment. One area in which Ryder is making
significant inroads is providing compressed natural gas
(CNG) vehicles for rent or lease to commercial customers.
Ryder clients taking advantage of the fuel cost savings and
environmental benefits of CNG in California include a
national office supply chain as well as a regional discount
retail chain, which signed a Ryder lease for a fleet of 40 CNG-
fueled trucks. In Southern California, the reliable source for
CNG is Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas®
).
CNG: Abundant and reliable
Ryder has found that CNG is reliable and efficient. It is
domestically available and its use reduces the country’s
dependence on foreign oil. CNG is more in-demand than ever,
with additional companies asking SoCalGas about switching
their fleets to the alternative fuel.
“With natural gas technology, you can invest in a long-term
domestic energy source that’s clean and abundant,”
according to Ryder. “With more predictable pricing, you
can minimize uncertainty and save money — today and
tomorrow.”
Ryder: Recognized for green leadership
Ryder’s use of alternative fuels has garnered praise in the
business world. Inbound Logistics magazine has included
Ryder in its Green Partners listing for five years in a row,
and Newsweek has included Ryder in its ranking of the
top 500 green U.S. companies for three years in a row.
CNG-fueled vehicles contribute to a company’s green
credentials just as they reduce toxic pollutants in the
atmosphere. Clean-burning CNG can reduce trucks’
carbon monoxide emissions by 90 to 97 percent and
carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 25 percent.
CNG-powered fleets, with no smog-producing particulate
emissions, are a step on the path toward eliminating
air pollution and reducing the reliance on petroleum imports.
Cutting costs with CNG
Ryder has been able to offset the costs of its new CNG
trucks through air-quality and other agency grants.
Ryder’s partnership with the San Bernardino Associated
Governments and the Southern California Association of
Governments (SCAG) Clean Cities Coalition began in 2010
and includes the deployment of 202 heavy-duty natural
gas-powered vehicles in Southern California. The $38.7
million project is being funded as part of a joint public/
private industry partnership between the U.S. Department
of Energy, the California Energy Commission and Ryder.
Now Ryder’s customers are paying far less for CNG than they
would for diesel. As the cost of diesel fuel has spiked and become
more volatile, the price of natural gas has remained stable.
(Continued on back)
“With natural gas technology, you can
invest in a long-term domestic energy
source that’s clean and abundant.”
NATURAL GAS VEHICLES
Customer Case Study
9. LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT
CNG school buses make the grade
With more than 40,000 students counting on their school
buses to pick them up in the morning and take them home
in the afternoon, the Los Angeles Unified School District
(LAUSD) needs a clean, cost-efficient, reliable fuel supply.
That’s why the nation’s second-largest school district turned
to Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas®
) to provide
natural gas to fuel more than one-third of its entire school
bus fleet.
LAUSD chose Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) because it is
clean-burning, inexpensive and reliable. With the largest fleet
of CNG school buses in California, the district chose SoCalGas
because it needed an expert partner to keep the tanks filled.
“It’s a good product, it’s good for the environment and it serves
us well,” says Donald Wilkes, LAUSD’s transportation director.
Yellow school buses go green!
With the help of SoCalGas, LAUSD launched a pilot program
in the 1980s, starting with four CNG-fueled school buses.
Over the years, the district also considered buses fueled with
methanol, and later considered electric vehicles, but decided
CNG was the best alternative fuel choice. Currently 475 of
the district’s school buses run on CNG.
“It’s a clean-burning fuel; you don’t have the fumes in your
loading zones around school sites,” Wilkes says. “Anywhere
we have kids and staff we want it to be as safe and healthful
as possible.”
Wilkes knows how strong the fumes can be from diesel buses.
The Southern California native drove a school bus in the
1980s. Hot days were a struggle between wanting to let air
into the bus and fear that diesel fumes would seep in through
the back windows. “The kids would complain. It’d be hot and
they’d want to let the windows down and you’d have to deal
with those fumes,” he recalls. “Moving to CNG, you don’t
have that.”
The district began replacing many of its buses in the early
2000s. And in 2003, the school board passed the Healthy
Breathing Initiative in an effort to green the district,
including its buses. The initiative specified a preference for
new CNG buses. Since then the district has added two CNG
fueling stations. Now parents notice fewer fumes at loading
sites, and students learn the difference their own district can
make for the environment.
By replacing hundreds of diesel buses with CNG-fueled vehicles,
the district has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by
2,595 metric tons, a 7.5% reduction just since 2007.
The arithmetic of incentives and fuel savings
LAUSD was able to use federal grants to pay most of the costs for
its new CNG-fueled buses. The South Coast Air Quality Manage-
ment District (SCAQMD) paid about 90% of the cost, Wilkes said.
And the district pays far less for CNG than for diesel. “It’s a
cheaper gas-gallon equivalent compared to gasoline or diesel
fuel,” Wilkes says, estimating that the cost per mile is about
20 cents cheaper overall for CNG than it would be for diesel.
“That can be substantial when you multiply that out by the
number of buses we have.”
(Continued on back)
“Anywhere we have kids and staff we want
it to be as safe and healthful as possible.”
NATURAL GAS VEHICLES
Customer Case Study
