Beginning in 1979 with oil-trading ventures in Latin America and Africa, Citizens has used revenues from commercial enterprises to channel millions of dollars into charitable programs in the U.S. and abroad.  Whether heating the homes of the elderly and the poor, lowering the cost of prescription drugs for millions of Americans, or starting solar heating projects in Jamaica and Venezuela, Citizens has created social ventures as innovative as the businesses that finance them.

Citizens Energy signed its first crude oil contract with Venezuela in November 1979. Joseph P. Kennedy II arranged storage deals with major terminal operators and contracted with hundreds of retail dealers to deliver the oil to needy Massachusetts families at 40 percent below market rates. By the end of its first 18 months of operations, Citizens Energy had acquired and delivered more than 13 million gallons of home heating oil from Venezuela to elderly and poor families in Massachusetts. In addition, Massachusetts itself purchased oil from Citizens Energy, using state and federal energy assistance funds, saving the state $4.1 million. Read More...

With the nation facing alarming increases in natural gas prices in the early 1980s, Citizens Energy Corporation began exploring opportunities to enter into the natural gas market. Citizens Energy believed that the same business model used in its Oil Heat Program – the use of for-profit opportunities to drive down the price of heating oil – could be applied to the natural gas industry. Read More...

In 1985, Citizens Energy began its electricity industry operations by buying power from utilities with surplus generating capacity, reselling the excess power to other utilities, and using the profits to help low-income families pay their electricity bills. This initial experience ultimately led Citizens to win a landmark federal decision that foreshadowed the deregulation of the electricity industry and the formation of an independent Citizens Energy electric power marketing company. Read More...

Citizens Conservation Corporation was created in 1981 to augment Citizens Energy’s fuel assistance programs. Recognizing that the least expensive form of energy is the energy saved through conservation and efficiency, Citizens Energy saw that its subsidized home heating oil often was wasted in poorly weatherized apartments with inefficient heating systems. By providing design, engineering, and construction management services, Citizens Conservation reduced energy waste in tens of thousands of housing units and made rental housing more livable and affordable.

Federal and state-funded weatherization programs existed at the time to provide conservation services to the poor, but Citizens Energy tried another approach. By appealing to the business concerns of building owners, Citizens sought to provide conservation and efficiency savings based on the performance of the improvements, rather than as a giveaway. Citizens Conservations’ strategy – to invest against projected savings – led to the company helping to reduce energy demand in thousands of housing units throughout the country.

Unlike most other energy service companies, which focused on retrofitting single-family homes or commercial and industrial facilities, Citizens Conservation concentrated on the most challenging segment of the energy conservation market – multi-family rental housing for low- and moderate-income residents. Citizens Conservation worked with building owners, real estate management companies, and utilities to provide a maximum level of investment to improve the building’s energy efficiency, generating long-term energy and building maintenance cost savings.

Citizens Conservation conducted rigorous building-specific energy audits and then created state-of-the-art engineering designs and financing arrangements to implement the recommended building improvements. Citizens Conservation also managed the construction process and provided educational programs for building managers and residents. In this manner, Citizens documented average energy savings for heating and hot water that reached 40 percent, with some energy reductions as high as 75 percent. Tens of thousands of apartments received Citizens Conservation retrofits, reducing energy demand and delivering millions of dollars in energy savings to taxpayers and residents.

In 1983, Citizens Energy formed a related company, Citizens Heat and Power Company, to provide similar energy conservation and efficiency services at major industrial and commercial properties. That company built a client portfolio of 170 separate buildings in four states, including hospitals, nursing homes, school departments, and municipal, county, and state government office buildings.

Citizens Heat and Power was sold to a major utility in 1986, while Citizens Conservation Corporation was sold in 1995 to Eastern Utility Corporation.