CS Energy is Working to Advance Opportunities for Women in Renewable Energy
February 1, 2021 | PRNewswireEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
CS Energy, a leading integrated energy firm that designs and builds optimized projects in the solar, storage, and emerging energy industries, has launched an employee-led effort to support, as well as increase the number of women on its team and within the broader renewable energy industry.
In spite of the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 global pandemic, a group of female employees, with the support of executive management, launched CS Energy's Women in Renewable Energy (CS Energy WiRE) program in the spring of 2020. CS Energy WiRE aims to engage the female employees at CS Energy and provide them with the tools needed to grow and advance through a network of support and mentoring. The group is designed for all female employees across the various departments to collaborate and grow both professionally and personally.
"Despite the pandemic, the spark was there," said Dawn Robinson, Director of Human Resources and Communications and founding member of CS Energy WiRE. "CS Energy is making a big difference with a top-down approach embracing and encouraging diversity within the company. Our leadership wasted no time in providing the resources needed to launch the group."
The number of women employed in STEM fields is low, and is especially low in renewable energy. "18 percent of CS Energy's workforce are women, including 20 percent in our executive team. Our goal is to keep improving participation through this initiative," said Janani Ramkumar, Director of Pre-construction and founding member of CS Energy WiRE.
CS Energy WiRE plans to increase CS Energy's ranks of female employees by 10 percent over the next year. The path to achieve that goal involves increasing more female participation in career fairs, developing mentorships, and encouraging network outside the company walls. The group has established a leadership team comprised of employees from a variety of departments and experience levels. That team has led the group through internal networking events and an external Town Hall, where female CS Energy leadership joined forces with the National Girls Collaborative Project to reach women and encourage them to pursue careers in sustainability, engineering, and renewable energy.
CS Energy has already been recognized as one of the Best Places to Work in New Jersey, in part because the company provides paid time off for volunteer work, allows flexible work schedules, and offers parental leave for both men and women. These benefits, which are not yet universal in the construction industry, are often called for by women in the workforce.
"There is so much opportunity for women to thrive in the exciting fields of renewable energy, engineering, and construction," said Diana Palazzi Mery, Executive Vice President of Accounting & Finance for CS Energy. "We're working to create a program that we hope will be a powerful tool to advance their success." Palazzi Mery is the first woman on the company's executive leadership team, and one of CS Energy WiRE's founding members.
Suggested Items
Digitalisation and ESG
04/19/2024 | Marina Hornasek-Metzl, AT&SDigitalisation and ESG are prominent and high-priority topics in the global business community. The first focuses on applying technology throughout the value chain to produce faster, smarter, and more desirable business outcomes. The latter emphasises the broader value a business is expected to create for its stakeholders from an environmental, social, and governance perspective.
Revolutionizing Sustainable Energy: Georgia Solar Companies Partner with Georgia Power to Unveil New Parking Deck Solar Array
04/19/2024 | BUSINESS WIREThree Georgia-based solar companies have joined together to design, build and construct an innovative solar array atop the parking deck at Georgia Power’s headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.
RTX Signs Largest Renewable Electricity Deal with ENGIE
04/19/2024 | RTXRTX announced an agreement with a subsidiary of ENGIE North America (ENGIE) that will provide 100% renewable electricity to 12 of the company’s Texas facilities.
Australian Flow Batteries and The SCHMID Group Announce Groundbreaking Memorandum of Understanding
04/17/2024 | SCHMID GroupAustralian Flow Batteries Pty Ltd (AFB), a leader in innovative energy solutions and economical, safe, and reliable power storage, and SCHMID Energy Systems GmbH a company of the German SCHMID Group, a global technology leader with a rich history in delivering innovative solutions across multiple industries including Electronics, Renewables, and Energy Storage sectors, are thrilled to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
Coherent Secures $15M in Chips Act Funding Through the CLAWS Hub
04/12/2024 | CoherentCoherent Corp., a leader in wide- and ultrawide-bandgap semiconductors, announced that it secured $15 million in funding from the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act of 2022 that provided the Department of Defense (DoD) with $2 billion to strengthen and revitalize the U.S. semiconductor supply chain.