CSO Insights: California's biggest utility talks decarbonization, climate adaptation and AI energy demands
About this episode
The episode features an interview with Aaron Johnson, the Chief Sustainability Officer of PG&E, discussing the utility's decarbonization strategy and adaptation measures for climate hazards.
In this episode of the All Things Sustainable podcast, we 're talking to the Chief Sustainability Officer of one of the largest utilit ies in the US — Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) . PG&E is a combined natural gas and electric utility serving more than 16 million people across 70,000 square miles in Northern and Central California. D uring San Francisco Climate Week 2026 , we sat down with Aaron Johnson , who took on the CSO role at the start of the year . Aaron explains PG&E's long-term decarbonization strategy and the utility's investments in adaptation measures to address climate hazards like wildfire and sea level rise , which are priorities in PG&E's California markets . He also discuss es growing energy demand from data centers to power booming AI usage — a topic that is front and center in the San Francisco Bay A rea and Silicon Valley. Aaron says PG&E is seeking to attract data center load to PG&E's service territory while driving down costs for customers. Across all these topics, Aaron explains how PG&E is balancing sustainability, affordability and energy security. "I don't think it's an either /or," he says. "They all come…
People in this episode
Guest: Aaron Johnson
Topics covered
- decarbonization
- climate adaptation
- AI energy demands
- sustainability
- energy security
Keywords
- PG&E
- decarbonization
- climate adaptation
- AI
- energy demand
- sustainability
- California
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Pacific Gas and Electric Company
Places: California
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