CSRwire Weekly News Alert:

How Green Are Green Business' Pastures?

Dorothy Schnure    2008-02-13 11:49:28

On Feb 8, 2008, at 6:10 PM, Schnure, Dorothy wrote: Dear Mr. Baue: I wish you had done a little research into Green Mountain Power before you criticized us for greenwashing in your recent article. While we are very proud that only two percent of our power supply comes from fossil fuels, we have never referred to our power supply mix as "green." We do, however, offer our customers the opportunity to choose 100% renewable electricity and to offset their home heating and driving carbon footprint through our "choose2bgreen" program. In addition, Green Mountain Power has committed itself to reduce the carbon footprint of its operations where possible and offset the remainder. Finally, we are very transparent about the role nuclear power plays in our portfolio. Should you wish to read about it, I would refer you to our sustainability report at . I strongly object to your claim that our statement about our low use of fossil fuels is greenwashing and expect that you would correct it in a future article. We have been very careful not to overclaim. Perhaps you confused our program where people can choose 100% renewable power (which would be rightly called "green") with our overall, low emission, portfolio. If you wish to discuss it further, please contact me at your earliest convenience. Dorothy Schnure Manager, Corporate Communications Green Mountain Power

Bill Baue    2008-02-13 11:52:16

From: Bill Baue Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 6:42 PM To: Schnure, Dorothy Cc: Joe Sibilia; Greg Schneider Subject: Re: comment from Green Mountain Power Dorothy, Thank you very much for taking the effort to engage with me on this. I certainly did not intend to represent Green Mountain Power as "greenwashing," nor do I believe I was criticizing you. In fact, I recently praised your disclosure on the "positive effects" and "negative effects" of nukes on your website to my students in the Marlboro Sustainability MBA program (one of whom works for VT Yankee), especially in comparison to FPL, which I had recently researched in writing a chapter for a book sponsored by Ceres. FPL doesn't even really acknowledge the negative effects--so I consider you much more transparent and honest than FPL. While you use the term "greenwash," please note that I did not use that term in the article, so it's unclear exactly how I could correct something that isn't there. What I did say is that the examples of Nike and GMP "point to landmines buried beneath the surface." I think it seems reasonable to suggest that nukes represent a "landmine" in the environmental community right now, with such luminaries as James Lovelock supporting them, academics such as John Holdren of Harvard taking a middle ground by suggesting that they may play a role in climate change mitigation when economic, storage, and security issues are solved, and Amory Lovins likening the revitalization of the nukes as "trying to defibrillate a corpse." Given this landscape, I believe my description that nukes "may be 'carbon-free' but [do] not qualify as "green" for many environmentalists" is accurate. And please note that I say that "many environmentalists" do not consider nukes to be "green"--I did not say that GMP has called nukes green, as you suggest. So, I regret that my writing opened up to the perception that I was accusing GMP of greenwash, though I hope we can agree that I was not making such an accusation. I would love to share our exchange with my Marlboro students in my Communications class, as we are studying greenwash as compared to valid claims (and I would say that GMP conducts best practice in your sector on addressing the thorny issue of nukes) as well as how reader perception can differ from author intentions, so please let me know if I have your permission to do so. (I'm cc'ing Joe Sibilia and Greg Schneider of CSRwire so they are aware of our exchange.) Again, thanks for speaking with me directly about this, and let me know if you'd like to engage further. Bill Bill Baue Writer, SocialFunds.com and CSRwire.com Co-host/producer, Corporate Watchdog Radio Adjunct Professor, Marlboro Sustainability MBA

Dorothy Schnure    2008-02-13 11:54:28

On Feb 11, 2008, at 4:37 PM, Schnure, Dorothy wrote: Bill -- Thanks so much for your quick response to this. Interesting communications issue. After reading your explanation, I can understand your point of view, and you did not, in fact, say that Green Mountain Power was greenwashing. However, given the context it was in, I'm sure I'm not the only one who read it as a criticism. In fact, the article was brought to my attention by a friend who said, "you guys are featured in this piece on “greenwashing.” I suppose you could argue that I was predisposed to read it as a criticism, since that's the flavor my friend put on it. However, I still feel the "but does not qualify as green..." sentence implies that we tried to qualify it as green. I am very pleased to hear that you have found and used our disclosure on Vermont Yankee. Interestingly, it was the Ceres stakeholder process that encouraged us to put that detailed information in, as some of the stakeholders criticized our first sustainability report as not having enough nuclear disclosure. I have since participated in reviews of other utilities where I was pleased to see ours held up as a good example. You are most welcome to use our exchange in your class. It is good for students to see how differently people can read the same words if you are approaching it from a different point of view. The beauty of continuing an exchange is that misperceptions can be cleared up. Unfortunately, we'll never know how many others may have read it the way you did not intend. Thanks for writing back and feel free to be in touch if there is any information about Green Mountain Power I can help you with. Dorothy Schnure Manager, Corporate Communications Green Mountain Power

Bill Baue    2008-02-13 11:57:23

From: Bill Baue Date: February 11, 2008 4:51:43 PM EST Subject: Re: comment from Green Mountain Power Thanks Dorothy. I do see more clearly how you may not be the only reader who interpreted this section as criticism of GMP instead of pointing out the complexity of green business, as I intended. In the end, reader perception is more important than authorial intention. Yes, interesting communications issue--thank you for permission to share this with my students. And perhaps Joe and Greg, you could turn on the "Commitment to Transparency" feature on that article so Dorothy could comment if she wishes. Thanks, Bill

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