Each year, Atmos Energy celebrates Earth Day alongside the 1,400 communities we serve. Beginning today and continuing all week, we will publish a series of stories about the ways that our comprehensive environmental strategy is focused on reducing Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions and other environmental impacts from our operations, fleet, facilities, gas supply, and customer end-use. 

As the Dallas-Fort Worth area continues to experience tremendous growth that expands our customer base, Atmos Energy recently dedicated two new service centers in the metroplex that showcase our commitment to environmental sustainability while allowing us to provide even better service to customers in those areas.  

In the City of Forney, we hosted an open house and ribbon cutting ceremony in December that was attended by Mid-Tex division leadership and a wide variety of local supporters including representatives from the Forney Chamber of Commerce, Forney Food Pantry, Forney ISD Education Foundation, Forney City Council, and the offices of Texas State Senator Bob Hall and Texas State Rep. Keith Bell. The 16,300-square-foot facility boasts a variety of environmentally friendly features like rainwater harvesting, roofing materials that mitigate a “heat island” effect, low-flow water use, native vegetation and green spaces, and rooftop photovoltaic solar panels that provide 12 percent of the electricity needed to power the building each day. These and other sustainable design elements allowed Atmos Energy to apply for LEED Gold certification, which speaks to the service center’s whole-building approach to sustainability in six key areas: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, indoor environmental sir quality, and innovation in the design process.  

Underscoring this area’s growing demand for natural gas, in the past three years alone Atmos Energy has started serving more than 31,000 new residential lots in Forney and its neighboring cities, with another 9,400 lots currently in negotiation. As the region continues to expand, being closer to the customer allows us to provide even better customer service. 

“Until now we were serving this area from the Garland service center, which could be a 35-mile drive out this way in the mornings,” said Operations Supervisor John Springfield. “Now we can stock the material here, and the employees who work in this area have a much shorter distance to cover. I think this will truly enhance the excellent customer service we strive to provide.” 

Over in Prosper, our customer base experienced 30 percent growth between 2020 and 2024 overall and 14 percent growth since last year alone, and the new service center is even larger than Forney with 22,700-square-feet of total space. It also features many of the same sustainable design elements as Forney, like rainwater harvesting, roofing materials that mitigate a “heat island” effect, low-flow water use, and native vegetation and green spaces. At this facility, however, the photovoltaic solar panels are ground-mounted and are expected to produce a full 22 percent of the electricity needed to power the building every year. As with Forney, Atmos Energy has applied for LEED Gold certification in Prosper.  

“Atmos Energy works to reduce its Scope 2 emissions by improving the energy efficiency of our facilities, and great care was taken to incorporate environmentally responsible materials with the design of this new service center,” said Operations Supervisor Zach White.  

Overall, Atmos Energy has designed and built 17 LEED-certified buildings, with additional certifications currently pending and more buildings in development. The sustainable design of these facilities helps us reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 843 metric tons, and we estimate that our LEED-certified buildings reduce water usage by about 50 to 60 percent annually.  

To learn more about Atmos Energy’s comprehensive environmental strategy and the ways it supports a lower carbon future, please review our Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Report at https://www.atmosenergy.com/sustainability/environmental-and-operational-sustainability.