NorthWestern Corp. has incorporated the Edison Electric Institute's environmental, social, governance and sustainability-related reporting template into its annual reporting.

The EEI ESG template is the first and only industry-focused and investor-driven ESG reporting framework that will augment investor-driven ESG/sustainability reporting practices, NorthWestern said in a Dec. 21 news release.

"The electric power industry is leading the way to a clean energy future, having reduced carbon dioxide emissions nearly 27 percent below 2005 levels as of the end of 2017," Tom Kuhn, president of EEI, an investor-owned utility advocacy group, said in the news release.

NorthWestern and EEI-led stakeholders have been developing the template for the last two years. It uses 2008 data as baseline and shows the company's ESG performance from 2015 to 2017.

NorthWestern operates under the trade name NorthWestern Energy.