Atlantic City Electric said it recently purchased $129 million in goods and services from diversity-certified suppliers in 2022, representing 37% of the company’s total yearly purchases, up $10 million from 2021 and the most spent with diverse suppliers in the company’s more than 100-year history.
“We take tremendous pride in growing our commitments with local and diverse suppliers,” Rodney Oddoye, senior vice president of governmental, regulatory and external affairs at Pepco Holdings, which includes Atlantic City Electric, said. “These supplier diversity partnerships are just one of the many ways that our customers and communities benefit from our commitment to diversity, equity & inclusion. We make these investments to power the economies of the local and diverse communities that we serve.”
For Atlantic City Electric, as well as its parent company Exelon, diversity, equity & inclusion are core foundational values — both in the workplace and in its engagement with the communities it serves.
Over the past five years, Exelon, the nation’s largest utility company, with more than 10 million customers, has spent more than $13 billion with diversity-certified businesses, including more than $2.8 billion in 2022. Because of its commitment to diverse suppliers, Exelon is a member of the Billion Dollar Roundtable, a top-level national advocacy organization that promotes corporate supplier diversity excellence.
“As a family-owned, minority-owned and woman-owned marketing communication firm, it’s a tremendous opportunity to be one of Atlantic City Electric’s partners,” Claire Riggs, managing partner of Riggs Creative Group LLC, said. “We appreciate the company’s deliberateness in choosing to work with local small businesses and consider it a testament to our strategic, creative, collaborative and client-focused approach to be entrusted to help advance its brand.”
Last year, Exelon announced a company-funded $36 million Racial Equity Capital Fund to support minority-owned businesses in the areas where its utilities operate, including Atlantic City Electric’s service area. The Racial Equity Capital Fund was established to help minority businesses obtain capital, fueling growth and spurring job opportunities in communities that have historically been underserved, underresourced and overlooked by investors and traditional funding sources.
As part of Atlantic City Electric’s commitment to expand its procurement efforts with local diversity-certified suppliers, the Empowerment Academy, formerly Target 25, provides potential suppliers opportunities to learn more about Atlantic City Electric’s procurement processes, as well as its parent company, Exelon, advancing the growth and development of each vendor’s relationship with the energy company. Since establishing the Empowerment Academy, Atlantic City Electric has graduated seven diversity-certified suppliers and looks to expand this opportunity to even more local, diverse suppliers.
