Energy

I’ve been in Monterey, California this week at the Sustainable Brands ’09 conference, a fascinating and inspiring event that showcases the many people and companies pointing the way towards a greener, more sustainable, way of life for humanity.

Reducing greenhouse gases and tackling global warming is a massive problem for society at large, and there a will be a big societal price tag for fixing it. Achieving that in a severe recession must be one of the thorniest issues on the government agenda for the rest of this decade and beyond.

President Obama’s announcement yesterday is the clearest indication yet that climate change will have more influence than ever before on national and international public policy in 2009. There was speculation, much of it around the European Summit in December, that tackling global warming would have to take a back seat to pulling the world out of a deep recession. Instead, Obama has presented the issue and the need for a ‘new energy economy’ as a massive opportunity for the United States, rather than a cost.

The energy industry is now in the spotlight like never before. Governments are imposing more and more legislation, NGOs and environmental activists are demanding action on global warming, and consumers are fed up with ever-rising bills for their homes and vehicles.

Companies are faced with enormous challenges because of several reasons:

A world economy expanding at an unprecedented rate over the past decade has caused the demand for energy to reach record levels; for supplies to be tight; for prices to soar; and for power blackouts for to occur regularly in developing countries. A massive effort by industry and government will be needed to keep the global economy on a growth path as we head towards a world population of nine billion by 2050.

Secondly are the growing threats from climate change caused by rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the result in part by centuries of burning fossil fuels for energy. Most scientists believe we must produce our energy with far fewer greenhouse gas emissions if we are to avoid serious effects from climate change by 2050.

Given the seriousness of these twin issues, it's no surprise that good communication has to be at the heart of the energy business as never before. Every company has to keep a dialogue with government, consumers and NGOs to make sure that its actions are understood and its point of view heard loudly and clearly. This is no easy task. As the CEO of one major oil company put it recently, these are complex issues which are difficult for people to understand. At the same time, the energy business has to do a better job of explaining them.

That's why Cohn & Wolfe has assembled a team of experts around the world for its global energy practice, to offer companies support on all vital stakeholder communication: government, industry, consumers, NGOs and the media.

The team is experienced in oil and gas, utilities, and alternative energies, such as solar, wind, biofuels and hydro. And is ready to help if your company needs to build a communications strategy around an important energy issue.