PORTLAND, Ore. — NW Natural has selected two local organizations to receive its new Conservation Champion Award, totaling over $100,000 in grants.

Building on a long history of investment in local environmental stewardship, the 163-year-old, Portland-based utility launched the award program to support leading environmental nonprofits’ efforts to grow capacity, develop innovative programs or reach new audiences. The three-year award includes an annual cash grant, in-kind resources and multi-level organizational engagement and activation.

The 2023-2025 Conservation Champion Award recipients include the following:

• Bonneville Environmental Foundation’s “CE - Clean Energy. Bright Futures.” program: Conservation Champion Signature Program Award ($25,000 per year)
  
  The Bonneville Environmental Foundation’s CE program supports educator leadership, illuminates energy career pathways, eliminates opportunity gaps and inequitable access to these careers, and brings energy education to life in classrooms.
   
• Oregon Bee Atlas: Conservation Champion Catalyst Award ($10,000 per year)
  
  The Oregon Bee Atlas is a volunteer initiative based at Oregon State University that focuses on creating a comprehensive and publicly accessible inventory of the state’s 700+ species of wild bees. Volunteer melittologists (i.e., the fancy term for those who study bees) also meticulously document what flowers each bee visits, resulting in an immensely useful database of plants. Finally, volunteers are busy across Oregon communities providing top-notched education on the bees of the state.   

“Through this partnership with NW Natural, CE will work with local educators and utility experts to co-develop a new STEM education opportunity to help inspire the next generation of clean energy leaders,” said Chaun MacQueen, Senior Director of the CE Program at BEF. “Students in the area will be among the first in Oregon to learn to design and build hydrogen fuel cell electric cars as part of a new renewable energy engineering challenge activity.”

“The Oregon Bee Atlas is a one-of-a-kind program in the United States,” said Andony Melathopoulos, Oregon State University’s Pollinator Health Extension Specialist. “The Catalyst Award will help us leverage all the data being collected by our volunteers and turn it into a tool that will help anyone who wants to match the best plants in their region to the bees that live there.” 

“At NW Natural, environmental stewardship has always been an area of philanthropic focus,” said Mary Moerlins, Director of Environmental Policy and Corporate Responsibility at NW Natural. “We are thrilled to be able to make an even greater impact now with the Conservation Champion Award and support the incredibly important work of these two organizations.”

The company donates nearly $1 million to local nonprofits every year, made possible by NW Natural shareholders. The new Conservation Champion Award is intended to be an ongoing part of the company’s community partnership efforts. More information can be found at https://www.nwnatural.com/about-us/community/corporate-contributions.   
 

About NW Natural  
NW Natural is a local distribution company that currently provides natural gas service to approximately 2.5 million people in more than 140 communities through more than 790,000 meters in Oregon and Southwest Washington with one of the most modern pipeline systems in the nation. NW Natural consistently leads the industry with high J.D. Power & Associates customer satisfaction scores. NW Natural, a part of Northwest Natural Holding Company, (NYSE: NWN) (NW Natural Holdings), is headquartered in Portland, Oregon, and has been doing business for more than 160 years. NW Holdings owns NW Natural, NW Natural Renewables Holdings (NW Natural Renewables), NW Natural Water Company (NW Natural Water), and other business interests. We have a longstanding commitment to safety, environmental stewardship, and taking care of our employees and communities. Learn more in our latest ESG Report.