Pembina Logo
Energy Transition & Climate

Energy Transition & Climate

Committed to protecting the environment; because we live, work and play here too

We understand the importance of providing secure energy to drive economic growth and improve global standards of living, all while supporting the transition to a lower carbon economy.

Health, Safety and Environment Policy

Environmental Stewardship 

For details on Pembina's Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, land use and biodiversity, see our latest performance report.

Our climate strategy includes:

  • A target to reduce our GHG emissions intensity 30% by 20301, relative to a 2019 baseline. The target helps guide business decisions that improve overall emissions intensity performance;
  • Decarbonization of our existing assets through operational efficiency, modernization, and asset optimization, as well as investing in abatement projects, including electrification, fugitive emissions management, and waste heat recovery;
  • Reducing scope 2 emissions through purchase of renewable electricity, evaluation of small scale on-site renewables and cogeneration (“cogen”) facilities; 
  • Developing transformational opportunities like Cedar LNG, Alberta Carbon Grid (“ACG”) and Pembina Low Carbon Complex projects; and
  • Evaluating the potential role for quality carbon offsets as part of a credible decarbonization strategy.

Our Roadmap to 2030:

In 2024, we undertook a major initiative to develop a detailed 30 by 30 roadmap to understand potential GHG reduction opportunities and costs. We remain focused on advancing our current 2030 target, including decarbonizing both our operating assets and electricity supply, while also leveraging the benefits of grid greening and increasing utilization of our assets. The roadmap identifies the projects to be prioritized to meet our target and provides an estimate of the associated costs, including near term budget needs for project development and engineering. At the same time, we are exploring transformative decarbonization solutions across Pembina’s operations.

Capital Planning

Underpinning the 30 by 30 roadmap is an expanded assessment of decarbonization projects and technologies to create a corporate-wide Marginal Abatement Cost Curve (“MACC”). In creating the MACC curve, we identified a range of options to decarbonize our assets and evaluated their costs, revenues, and associated compliance obligation impacts. The assessment has enabled Pembina to identify projects with positive returns, prioritize higher emitting facilities and evaluate trade-offs among various emission reductions projects.

As prudent stewards of capital, our decarbonization roadmap includes prioritizing decarbonization projects that generate a positive rate of return for the company’s stakeholders and are assessed with the same financial rigour as our core business. When evaluating decarbonization projects, we will consider the market-based carbon price, potential operational savings and seek to leverage grants and incentives.

Challenges and Complexity in Reaching 30 by 30

As we move forward in our decarbonization journey, there remain dynamic challenges which introduce risk and complexity to meeting our emissions reductions. These include:

  1. Customer Contracts - Emissions reduction projects are not developed in isolation of the long-term contracts underpinning Pembina’s commercial structure. Many capital expenditures require approvals or participation from customers, sometimes subject to stringent pay-back requirements. For Pembina, advancing credible emissions reduction projects requires commercial engagement and customer support, adding complexity and risk to our decarbonization planning.
  2. Regulatory Uncertainty - We continue to monitor evolving climate change policies and carbon pricing regulations across the jurisdictions in which we operate. Emerging and duplicative regulations, permitting ambiguity, and slow-moving or restrictive incentive programs can negatively impact the pace and scale of decarbonization investment, creating a competitive disadvantage for Canadian projects relative to jurisdictions with established incentive programs. Government action to create efficient regulation and maximize value of clean growth incentives will be critical to the success of the energy transition in Canada and a balanced, responsible, and competitive regulatory regime is required to support investment in decarbonization, particularly for new and emerging clean growth industries. Certainty of carbon policies and incentives impact the return profile and competitiveness of decarbonization projects and can vary significantly. Lack of certainty brings additional complexity to the evaluation of decarbonization opportunities.
  3. Technological Advancements - Technologies that support decarbonization continue to advance, and as adoption rates increase, we expect the cost of these technologies to decrease, leading to better economics. We remain focused on carefully evaluating the development of new technologies and solutions to assess their suitability for Pembina’s specific operations.

Considering the challenges and complexities involved in reaching 30 by 30, along with our focus on executing economically viable projects, there is the possibility that our ability to achieve our target by 2030 could be delayed.


1Pembina’s 30 by 30 target is based on an operational control approach to define our organizational boundaries for GHG reporting and includes all material scope 1 and 2 emissions sources and sinks associated with Pembina operated facilities and pipelines, as well as corporate activities.

Related Stories

Mon, 10 Jun 2024
Pembina supports a sustainable future with Project Forest
Wed, 07 Sep 2022
Pembina partners with Project Forest to plant thousands of trees
Thu, 09 Dec 2021
Protecting wildlife and wild places (Part 2)
Mon, 06 Dec 2021
Protecting wildlife and wild places (Part 1)