Leadership Commitment & Accountability
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Leadership Commitment & Accountability
The culture, accountability and support of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) starts at the top with how we lead. Diversity, equity and inclusion is at the core of everything we do, and our leadership teams are focused on goals and transparency, supplier diversity, philanthropic giving, support of human rights and our companywide, leadership-led diversity and inclusion council.Setting goals and creating transparency
Duke Energy has established diversity targets to serve as goal markers for moving the needle. We are committed and hold ourselves accountable for making progress. Increasing the percentage of underrepresented employee groups and leaders, specifically females and race/ethnicity, is a company priority. In 2021, the company had its most diverse recruiting year-to-date with 35% female and 34% people of color new hires. We believe transparency is an important part of our journey and aspirational goals are markers for progress. Our diversity data will continue to be noted in the Workforce Performance Metrics section of our ESG Report to follow our progress each year.Enterprise Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Council
This council was formed in 2020 to serve as advisors for continuous improvement of our DEI program work, and development of actionable outcomes and results. Areas of focus come directly from the voice of employees as a roadmap for an engaging and inclusive workplace and community.The council is led by Dhiaa Jamil, Chief Operating Officer, and includes leaders from all business units, as well as employee resource group representatives.
D&I Training
The top 400 leaders in the company have completed unconscious bias training and we continued the focus with the race awareness experience in 2021 and 2022. Leaders and individual contributors have the opportunity to participate in building an inclusive workforce training, which is designed to address potential workplace issues and create and maintain a fair and professional culture. The voluntary training opportunity provides a framework and guidance for difficult conversations in a positive way. In 2020, the company held more than 550 Pathways to Inclusion conversations to provide employees an opportunity to talk openly and candidly about how recent and historical events have impacted them. In 2021, these conversations evolved into a “Let’s Talk About It” series with nearly 6,000 employee participants, fostering a shared understanding of each other.Support of Human Rights
Human rights are the basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled. Duke Energy was one of the first companies in our industry to adopt a Human Rights Policy that outlines practices and policies to ensure an ongoing commitment to and respect for human rights.Supplier Diversity
Duke Energy has spent more than $1 billion annually over the past five years with minority-, women-, veteran-, service-disabled veteran-owned and federal HUBZone certified businesses. The spending has grown an average of 10 percent per year.It is our privilege, policy and practice to proactively seek and build relationships with diverse suppliers. Through Supplier Diversity, we build relationships with diverse businesses capable of providing commodities and services at competitive prices. These relationships also help to strengthen the economy and increase business opportunities for everyone.