Energy Sciences Sustainable Sixteen: A Year in Review

Turning sixteen is a milestone that stands just a bit above the ordinary birthday celebration. It marks a year brimming with new opportunities and an overwhelming sense of excitement for the future. As Energy Sciences embarked on 2024, sixteen years after our establishment in 2008, we couldn’t help but feel that this year would be one etched in our memories.

We named this year our “Sustainable Sixteen.” Reflecting on the past twelve months, we are filled with gratitude and a sense of accomplishment for all that we achieved with our incredible team, clients, and partners. It truly was a remarkable year, filled with sustainable service, as we steadfastly pursued our mission to make an impact and contribute to a world where clean, affordable energy and water are available to everyone, and the preservation of natural resources is common practice for everyday life.

Join us as we reminisce about sixteen of our top memories and accomplishments from our 16^th year.

1.    Sustainable Gardening Food 4 Thought

Our very own gardening expert, Nichole Becker, shared her passion for gardening and seed starting with the ES team in a Food 4 Thought, lunch and learn style event. The team learned how to plan for the planting zone they live in, how to start from seeds, and other helpful tips.

2.    Annual Company Event at the Historic Zingerman’s Cornman Farms

Energy Sciences’ annual company event was held at Zingerman’s Cornman Farms this year. Most of our teammates, from all over the country, joined in the event, receiving a tour of the garden that supplies their kitchen with herbs, the historical farm, as well as the farmhouse. We enjoyed an amazing lunch while we reminisced on 16 years of ES and how we have grown.

3.    Volunteering with Engineering Society of Detroit (ESD), Girls in Engineering Academy (GEA)

A few of our team members were able to meet with girls in the ESD Girls in Engineering Academy sharing with them what an engineering path in energy efficiency could look like.

4.    Implementation of Greenly

As a hybrid company, it can be challenging to track our carbon footprint. This year we implemented Greenly to survey and compute our energy usage and other impacts as a company.

5.    DOE Energy Futures Grant with Madison Heights – Continuing Our Partnership

2024 was a great year for our partnership with Madison Heights. After helping them earn the Community Energy Management (CEM) grant to build their sustainability plan, the two teams worked along with several other local communities to go after the DEO Energy Futures Grant.

6.    ES In-House Training Content

A number of what was previously externally provided trainings, such as Safety and IT Security training, were brought in-house this year. Through leveraging the skills and expertise of our diverse team, we were able to create custom trainings more specific to our organization’s needs.

7.    Sustainable 16 Campaign

Throughout the year we shared team engagement activities and posts on LinkedIn highlighting Energy Sciences’ 16 years of service! It was great to reminisce on old times and remember how far we have come. One of our favorite ways we celebrated our 16^th year was our LinkedIn post where members of our team showed off pictures from when THEY were 16!

8.    SOC 2 Type 2

In 2024, we proudly earned the SOC 2 Type 2 report, a significant milestone that underscores our commitment to meeting compliance standards and enhancing our risk management practices as a company.

9.    Municipal Roundtable

Hosted our first Green Vision Roundtable meeting with Melissa Marsh, City Manager of the city of Madison Heights discussing key challenges for municipalities and local governments surrounding sustainability planning, and how we can help provide support and solutions.

10.  Recharge Week

This year during the week of Thanksgiving, the entire company took off to provide much needed time to rejuvenate, focus on well-being, and spend time with family and friends, without requiring the use of any PTO.

11.  Enhanced Benefit Package

In our continued efforts to identify ways to improve and enhance the benefits that are provided to our employees, we were excited to have been able to implement an updated benefit package which provided additional coverage for both full-time and part-time employees. 

12.  Give Back Impacts

Through the work of our Gives Back Committee, we had over 60 different employees volunteer over 200 hours resulting in 1000 bags of food packed, 1,860 meals provided, over 270 food items donated, 132 pounds of trash picked up, six trees and two gardens planted, one thousand square feet sustainably landscaped, one acre of forest being managed and cleared of invasive species, and two families adopted during the holiday season.

13.  Eight Committees Met Their Goals

Across each of our eight internal, interdepartmental committees we were able to achieve every annual goal.This work improved the quality of our work, the strength of our culture, the well-being of our employees, and engaged with the communities we are a part of in new and meaningful ways.

14.  Live Internal Cooking and Mixology Shows

To create new and fun ways to build connection remotely, we produced and hosted two live stream internal events weaving stories of our company’s history with two things we love – food and drinks! We talked about how to minimize food waste with creative leftover-based recipes in one and in the other, we highlighted both cocktail and mocktail recipes that use ingredients in innovative ways for twists on classics. 

15.  Conference Attendance and Presentations

Members of the Energy Sciences team attended over 31 conferences to support our business development and professional development initiatives and had the honor of providing presentations at five of these conferences. 

16.  Largest Environmental Impact Since Inception

What we may be most proud of this year is that we helped energy users across the globe save more MWh of electricity, MMBtu of natural gas, and remove more tons of carbon dioxide than in any other year since our founding. We are still tabulating the exact numbers, but if you follow the Energy Sciences LinkedIn page you can celebrate with us when we share our final numbers in a post mid-January.