At Blackstone we invest for the long-term on behalf of our investors, including over 100 million pensioners, and the communities in which we operate. Our patience allows us to develop strong, resilient companies and assets that can deliver both long-term value for our investors, and long-term resilience for a more sustainable future.
Using decarbonization lessons learned to build an industry-leading platform
For example, over the last decade, we have partnered closely with our portfolio companies to help them reduce carbon emissions. In the process, we have learned a lot about what works — and what doesn’t — when it comes to reducing carbon emissions across a wide variety of assets in vastly different sectors of the economy. We have built what we believe is an industry-leading decarbonization platform and are committed to a target of reducing carbon emissions by 15% in aggregate within the first three years of ownership, starting in 2021, for every company in which we control energy usage – a commitment informed by climate science. Our long-term investment horizon gives us time to partner with our portfolio companies to help them achieve a stronger, lower-carbon future.
Renewable energy transmission project to link Montreal and New York City
We also invest at scale in certain industries that can drive transformational change in the global economy, such as the energy transition. Our committed and intentional approach to investing in the energy transition allows us to stay with projects longer than many other investors would have the patience for. One example of our strategy in action is the proposal we helped craft with TDI, a portfolio company, to build the Champlain Hudson Power Express, a 339-mile renewable energy transmission project linking Montreal and New York City. After over a decade of commitment, including close collaboration with communities, labor organizations, environmental stewards, and municipalities, New York State selected TDI’s proposal in October 2021.
Expected impact? Growth from clean energy, decrease CO2, and clean energy jobs
The project is expected to have tremendous positive benefits – it will deliver 1,250 MW of clean energy to New York City by 2025, enough to power over 1M homes and decrease CO2 emissions by an estimated average of 3.9M metric tons per year, which is equivalent to removing 44% of cars from the city. The project is also expected to create approximately 1,400 jobs during construction, with a commitment to using union labor, and includes a $40 million new Green Economy Fund that will provide job training for clean energy jobs.
Our decarbonization platform and our commitment to investing at scale into the energy transition is a testament to what investors with a long-time horizon can achieve.