The Grassroots are Greener:
A Community-Based Approach to Marketing Green Power

Part IV: Launching the Grassroots Campaign

When PSCo announced its green pricing program for wind power in spring 1997, the LAW Fund began a coordinated effort to initiate the partnerships that would drive the grassroots marketing campaign. Extensive positive media coverage of Windsource helped with this effort (see Appendix B). This may, in part, have been the result of the unusual nature of the partnership between former adversaries — PSCo and environmental groups. At any rate, the positive media coverage created fertile soil for the leadership activities of important players in the grassroots strategy. The Grassroots Campaign derives its power from the participation of these key players in the community — which includes state and local government, the business sector, citizens, and a number of local utilities that are buying wind power wholesale from larger utilities.

The Governor

In summer 1996, Governor Roy Romer formed a Renewable Energy Task Force — composed of 25 leaders in the utility and renewable energy fields — to explore approaches for acquiring 250 MW of renewable energy in Colorado by 2005.¹² As green pricing programs became available in early 1997, the Task Force decided to strongly endorse them as an important component for reaching the 250 MW target. In releasing the results of the Task Force, the governor gave these programs a strong boost and helped stimulate media coverage.

In addition, Governor Romer also purchased wind for the Governor's Mansion and installed solar panels on its roof. He hosted a press conference to commend PSCo and the other utilities for offering a wind power choice for the first time and to acknowledge the environmental partner groups.¹³ Most important for catalyzing the support of the business community, he saluted the six wind power "champions" that had committed to a specified level ofwind power purchases. PSCo's

CEO and representatives from the wind power champion companies also lent considerable weight to the occasion. The event was featured in all the major newspapers and on the evening news by three local TV stations. Through the end of his term in January 1999, the Governor continued to use his office as a bully pulpit for renewable resource deployment in the state. Almost a year after the press conference, when a July heat wave spurred power outages, he made headlines by urging the state to stop relying so heavily on coal and to use diverse sources of power such as wind and the sun.

Funding for the grassroots community-based marketing effort also can be traced to the Governor's support. His Office of Energy Conservation awarded a series of grants to nonprofit organizations to expand the community-based approach to aggregating demand for wind power more widely in Colorado. In 1999, eight nonprofit organizations are using the methods and collateral materials developed by the Grassroots Campaign to educate customers about the environmental benefits of their energy choices:

• the Clean Air Campaign of the Pikes Peak Region in Colorado Springs,
• Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful in Colorado Springs,
• the Grand Valley Earth Coalition in Grand Junction,
• Solar Energy International in Carbondale,
• the Colorado Renewable Energy Society in Denver,
• the Boulder Energy Conservation Center in Boulder,
• the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute in Basalt, and
• the Sheep Mountain Alliance in Telluride.

The LAW Fund is now helping other nonprofits get funding to replicate the campaign elsewhere in the state where utilities (in particular,¹⁴ of the Tri-State Generation & Transmission Association member co-ops) are now offering wind power.

Although the Governor's actions did not produce significant wind purchases by state agencies, his actions sparked substantial media coverage and provided support for ongoing Grassroots Campaign efforts to convince businesses and city governments to invest in wind power.

Municipalities

City and town governments have played a critical role in furthering community interest in wind power. Their purchase of wind power provides community leadership for this renewable source, garners media attention, and helps to certify that green power is a credible, environmentally preferable product. In addition, cities and towns have used their own channels — such as municipal bills, cable TV programs, and newsletters — to heighten people's awareness of the economic and environmental implications of energy choices and to publicize local businesses that choose to purchase wind power.

Denver and Boulder, as wind power champions, played a strong role in the new opportunity to use green power. Boulder, in particular, was important in the Grassroots Campaign. The city purchased enough wind to run half of its Municipal Building. The mayor hosted a press conference on the lawn outside to announce the purchase and to recognize a number of Boulder businesses that had made early purchases of wind power to demonstrate their environmental responsibility and community stewardship. Boulder residents Frank Shorter, an Olympic gold medalist in the marathon, and Dave Scott, a world champion triathlete, talked about buying wind power to invest in the kind of future we want, especially for our children. This event generated coverage in the Boulder and Denver papers and got spots on the evening TV news.

Boulder also demonstrated leadership by linking its wind power purchase to investments in energy efficiency. The city planned to use the savings from efficiency investments to cover the additional cost of the wind power. These actions underscored the ethic of sustainable energy use and helped educate Boulderites about ways to embrace this ethic.

Other cities and towns have followed the lead of Boulder and Denver by investing in wind power. These range from the mountain communities of Aspen, Snowmass Village, Nederland, and Carbondale to the large Denver suburb of Littleton. In all, cities are purchasing almost 17,000 kWh of wind power a year and are one of the most effective components of the Grassroots Campaign even though their wind purchases are generally a small percentage of their total electricity use. (See Appendix A for a list of the cities and towns buying wind power.)

Businesses

The leadership of prominent businesses — from large national and international corporations to small, locally owned shops — is critical to marketing green power in the community. Like public-sector purchases, private-sector purchases set an example of community stewardship and create media interest and coverage. In the case of large corporations, the purchases also have the potential to produce significant market pull for renewable energy if the companies promote them to customers in their own marketing efforts and also encourage their employees and suppliers to follow suit.

On the other hand, environmental groups (including the LAW Fund) often have mixed feelings about selling green power to a large, well-known corporation because it potentially allows the company to "greenwash" its operations by shifting the focus from environmentally damaging activities. Some have viewed PSCo's Windsource program in this light. Conversely, some companies are wary of promoting their green power purchase because of the possibility of greenwashing accusations by the environmental community. Several large companies have told Grassroots Campaign staff that even if they were to purchase all of the wind that PSCo had to offer they still might not gain a public relations benefit. In spite of their skepticism, some of these companies have made the decision to buy wind power anyway as one way to try to improve their environmental image.

Negotiating business participation is sometimes a challenge for the Grassroots Campaign. Companies want the positive PR kicker from buying wind power, and the renewable energy advocates want to sell as many kilowatt-hours of wind power as possible to as many companies as possible. For some people, a problem arises when the advocates essentially provide a green stamp of approval to a large company that agrees to buy wind power but in a small amount relative to its size. Yet even a small purchase by a large company represents a relatively large number of kWhs of wind power compared with the purchases of most small companies.

In the course of selling wind power to businesses, the LAW Fund and PSCo learned how to work together as a team, and the partnership started to run more smoothly. This involved open-mindedness and a willingness to respect different organizational goals and beliefs — protecting the environment for the LAW Fund versus making a profit for PSCo. The LAW Fund learned the importance of being able to speak the language of business and to temper the passion and zeal that can make the corporate world uncomfortable. PSCo accepted the LAW Fund's lead in the process of educating customers about the environmental benefits of renewable energy. This cooperative approach had the positive result of getting a broad spectrum of business customers to buy wind power.14

Businesses can be approached in a variety of ways. Sometimes, with more environmentally oriented companies, the Grassroots Campaign is a more effective messenger because of its credibility and involvement in environmental issues. Where environmental groups are viewed with skepticism, a local community group or utility may have more acceptance. When approaching particularly conservative businesses, such as banks, the utility can handle the customer on its own without an environmental group that might potentially be viewed as anti-business. In still other situations, the LAW Fund and the PSCo service representative meet jointly with a company to sell wind power. This is usually the case with larger businesses, where honoring PSCo's relationship with the customer is especially important.

Thus PSCo took the lead in selling wind power to a Boulder company long accustomed to attacks in the press by local environmental groups. And the LAW Fund is making more headway with the University of Colorado, based on the LAW Fund's connection with a number of student environmental organizations and ongoing relationships with influential faculty and administrators. One important lesson learned is that there are significant differences in marketing to small businesses and large corporations.

The Small Business Market

High-profile service businesses — such as hospitals, churches, restaurants, nonprofit community organizations, bookstores, natural food markets, outdoor clothing and sporting goods stores, microbreweries, small boutiques, coffee houses, and theaters — are particularly likely to purchase green power. Any market segment that provides a social service for the community, sells a product that relates to the environment in some way, or has customers who are likely to admire businesses for their environmental actions also may be willing to pay more to purchase a clean energy product. Certain business groups are a natural focus for marketing green power, such as Boulder's PACE (Partners for a Clean Environment) program. And local newspapers are a good source for learning about businesses that have a policy of supporting social or environmental causes in the community.

The Grassroots Campaign has been particularly successful in getting contracts for wind power from small businesses. Statewide, more than 200 have signed up. Many of these are retail or other storefront businesses that are helping to get the word out about wind power in their community by displaying stickers in their windows that read "This Business Powered by Colorado Wind Energy." Owners of nearby businesses notice the stickers and often sign up for wind power themselves.

Sticker used by retail and other storefront businesses that helps get the word out about wind power in their communities.

Most of the participating businesses are in Boulder County, where the Grassroots Campaign has been active the longest. Hundreds more are likely to participate if there continue to be resources to support the efforts of local groups to promote wind power.

Initiating contact with small businesses begins with a personal letter. This is followed by a phone call and, if there is interest, a personal visit to discuss the particulars. There is also a "street team" approach that can be used in high-density commercial districts such as the Boulder pedestrian mall. This involves simply walking into an establishment and talking to the owner or manager or leaving a packet of materials for the decisionmaker. The LAW Fund has pioneered this approach by hiring three former environmental canvassers to call on all the businesses along a particular street. Their familiarity with cold calling techniques, such as adjusting their presentation of an environmental message to appeal to people with a variety of views and belief systems, has helped them market wind power. In the end, getting a small business to buy wind power usually depends on the business owner's personal interest and belief in the value of using renewable energy.¹⁵

As of April 1999, the street team had approached 900 businesses over one year, with approximately 150 responding favorably by signing three-year contracts. These small to medium- sized business customers chose to purchase roughly 15% of their total energy requirements from wind power — on average, 10 blocks or 1,000 kWh a month. The combined efforts of the street team have resulted in an investment of roughly $1 million in wind power, allowing an additional 1-2 turbines to be constructed in Colorado.

Chambers of commerce, as nonprofit organizations, can play a useful role in marketing to small and, in some cases, large businesses. They can provide key contacts, publicize the wind purchases of member companies, and generally add credibility to the marketing effort. Moreover, they lack the negative public image sometimes associated with environmental groups that use adversarial tactics, and they do not face the distrust sometimes directed toward utilities. They also enjoy a strong relationship with the media. And they can function as the catalyst organizing group for a grassroots marketing effort in communities that lack an established environmental group to provide the necessary leadership and coordination.

In Vail, for example, the Chamber of Commerce was the only local organization with the staff and institutional capabilities to carry out a grassroots marketing effort. The Vail chamber represents nearly 600 businesses in nine communities throughout the Eagle Valley — restaurants, lodges, hotels, summer and winter activity companies, professional services, real estate, and construction companies. The chamber can capitalize on these relationships to get widespread involvement in the wind power campaign. And in Boulder, the president of the chamber offered to contact members personally about the opportunity to buy wind power.

Marketing to Large Companies

Large national corporations that buy wind power and promote it to their employees, suppliers, and customers can create market pull for renewable energy. These companies are often influential with their peers and can be effective promoters of wind power to other corporations. For these reasons, approaching and working with large customers to adopt a comprehensive corporate clean energy strategy is a high priority for the Grassroots Campaign.

Because it is time-consuming and often an uphill battle to educate management about the value of corporate environmental responsibility, it can be more efficient to target companies where this ethic is already in place.¹⁶ Good candidates are companies that are members of socially responsible business groups such as the Pollution Prevention Partnership of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Business for Social Responsibility's ClimateWise Partners, and the Washington- based Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Other companies to target might be those whose shareholders have placed climate change proposals on the ballot at recent annual meetings. The environmental community and the renewable energy stakeholder network provide another gateway to large companies.

To approach large companies, initial research could investigate their Web sites and annual reports. Based on this research, a proposal can be developed to promote the renewable energy purchase both internally and to the public. This involves suggesting a "story" that can give their renewable energy investments significance to their employees and customers.

If the company has a large number of employees, another opportunity involves working with management to market wind power internally to employees much like corporate United Way campaigns. The Grassroots Campaign and company management can draft a marketing plan that states a goal of signing up a certain percentage of employees and describes a program of incentives to achieve the goal. Each situation is different, but the idea is to have management and employees derive the utmost benefit from their commitment to use renewable energy.

What Drives Corporate Purchases?

Many businesses with management teams that are sensitive to environmental issues, such as Patagonia and New Belgium Brewery, agree that the environmental, political, and public relations value of green power can far outweigh the additional cost.¹⁷ In Colorado, the Windsource champions got substantial public relations benefits, including recognition by the Governor, that were likely far in excess of their $22,500 commitment over the three-year contract period.¹⁸ At this time, however, no one has attempted to quantify the PR value of buying green power.

Some companies also believe their customers may prefer to do business with an environmentally responsible company, and therefore welcome the opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to the environment by buying wind power.¹⁹ And companies are aware that early adopters receive the most press — as evidenced by the national coverage of Toyota's million-dollar wind purchase for its facilities in California.

Other companies in Colorado make a strictly business case for purchasing wind power. A Fortune 100 firm — which was aggressively seeking a large federal government renewable energy contract — used a Windsource purchase to try to gain a competitive edge in the bidding process. Public statements by management also emphasized the company's inter est in strengthening the renewable energy industry in the United States and the idea of sustainability — investing in renewable resources because fossil fuels are running out.

Nevertheless, for small and large businesses alike, the extra cost of wind power is the most common reason given for deciding against or not being willing to consider a purchase.

Residential Customers

Given the staff time involved in personally contacting individual business customers, PSCo and other green power providers have spent most of their dollars marketing wind power to residential customers. The residential market is, by sheer numbers, the driving force behind green power programs. Bill inserts, direct mail, press releases, and media events have been the mainstays of many utility marketing strategies, along with print ads, radio, and (less frequently) television spots.

The Grassroots Campaign strategy for residential customers is designed to supplement and enhance these marketing techniques. One key component of the grassroots approach is staffing booths or tables at community events such as art fairs and festivals or at high-traffic locations in a community, such as natural foods markets, pedestrian malls, or farmers' markets. At these venues, volunteers can educate customers directly about the green power ethic and can get them to sign up on the spot for wind power. A LAW Fund wind power table at the Boulder Creek Festival over Memorial Day week-end in 1997 signed up almost 100 customers. In Fort Collins, the Sierra Club recruited volunteers to staff a table at a local natural foods market that, over a weekend, signed up 14% of the customers needed to meet the initial program goal of Fort Collins Utilities Wind Power Pilot program.²⁰

Making presentations at meetings of Rotary clubs and other local community organizations is another way to build residential customer awareness about the choice of wind power. In addition, a grassroots campaign could have a presence at community forums that pertain to sustainability, such as workshops on pollution prevention or activities in conjunction with Earth Day.

Newsletters provide a further opportunity for grassroots marketing. A number of environmental and nonprofit organizations have run articles about wind power and included signup forms in their newsletters. These publications reach thousands of households concerned about the environment and other societal issues.

Overall, information tables, presentations, and newsletters primarily function as education and awareness-building mechanisms; they often do not produce a substantial number of actual wind power sign-ups. It seems likely, however, that these activities may result in future sign-ups that are triggered by utility bill information, direct mail appeals, or word of mouth.

In addition, a new Colorado Wind Power web site may be a vehicle for immediate enrollment for wind power. The site, www.cogreenpower.org, was created and is maintained by the Grassroots Campaign. Cogreenpower.org highlights information about each of the utility green pricing programs in the state, provides sign-up forms for each utility program, and furnishes an interactive environmental benefits calculator. Also, a list of businesses buying wind power will be posted to recognize their leadership in purchasing clean energy.

PSCo's residential customer marketing involves placing program information and sign-up forms in the Update, a general informational newsletter included in customers' monthly electricity bills (this is not a separate Windsource insert). In addition to a media event at the windfarm, a small direct-mail campaign to 20,000 ZIP-code targeted customers was extremely successful — with a response rate of almost 6%.²¹ PSCo also placed Windsource information in a Colorado Guidebook issued by the nonprofit group Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado, and Windsource sponsors several programs on public television and public radio.

Yet clean energy advocates have criticized PSCo for not buying more advertising for Windsource. In planning the Grassroots Campaign strategy, the LAW Fund assumed that PSCo, like other green power providers, would use print ads, radio, television, or all three, because Windsource is an entirely new product. The Fund and other advocates believe that this would give wind power validity and legitimacy in the market — and would increase the effectiveness of the community-based marketing activities. The environmental coordinator at the national headquarters of a business in Boulder, for example, told the LAW Fund that the company would prefer to wait to buy wind power until it is a more established product. It has been frustrating to see PSCo spend millions of dollars on branding and image ads on television that never mention or feature the new wind power product. The LAW Fund is aware, however, of the difficulties that utility marketing staff face in getting a significant amount of their budget dedicated to promoting the utility's green power products. In 1997 and 1998, PSCo spent roughly $250,000 marketing Windsource.

Until mid-1999, PSCo's position on its low marketing profile was that the company has been in an awareness-building mode and that its efforts, coupled with the enormous amount of free media coverage of Windsource, have driven subscriptions twice as fast as the marketing strategy projected. In the first six months of the program, nearly 10 MW had been sold (5 MW were expected by this point). PSCo had thought it would have to go into a more active mode just to sell the first 5 MW. At the April 1999 Marketing Advisory Group meeting, PSCo indicated that its number one Windsource marketing cost in 1999 will be advertising, followed by direct mail and then bill inserts. During the spring and summer, several direct mail pieces, using various degrees of targeting, were planned.

Given PSCo's lack of aggressive advertising in 1997 and 1998, it seems clear that the Grassroots Campaign and the endorsement of environmental groups made a major contribution to the unexpected early success of Windsource as well as the other utility green pricing programs in the state. More than 30% of total residential customer sign-ups and over 50% of business purchases are from Boulder County, where the LAW Fund has been piloting the Grassroots Campaign.

Other Utilities

Fort Collins Utilities launched the first green pricing program in Colorado in September 1996. The support of the city council, the citizens on the local electric board, and the local chapter of the Sierra Club turned initially sluggish customer response into a fully sold out program (two 600-kW turbines) in three months, meeting the utilities' December deadline for ordering wind turbines. For the LAW Fund, the Fort Collins experience provided anecdotal evidence that community-based efforts can indeed stimulate customer interest in and purchase of wind power. By April 1999, Platte River Power Authority, the wholesale provider to the municipal utilities of Fort Collins, Loveland, and Longmont, had invested in four additional 660-kW turbines to provide wind power to Fort Collins (an additional one and a half turbines), Loveland (one-quarter of a turbine), Longmont (one-quarter of a turbine), Tri-State (1 turbine), and the City

of Aspen through MEAN, a wholesale supplier (1 turbine). Due to the organizing and outreach efforts of the LAW Fund and, in particular, of CORE in the Roaring Fork Valley, several smaller utilities such as Holy Cross Electric Association and Aspen Municipal expressed an interest in purchasing wind power wholesale from PSCo, eventually committing to buy 1.75 MW of wind power from PSCo. By April 1998, with almost 2% of their customers signed up, they had committed to another 1.25 MW, for a total of 3 MW. These initial wholesale purchase commitments were important in helping focus the attention of senior management at PSCo on the business aspects of wind power.

Soon after, largely in response to the positive media attention received by PSCo, Colorado Springs Utilities launched its wind power program in August 1997, originally buying 0.5 MW of wind from PSCo. That amount was sold in one year. By April 1999, the utility had committed to buying an additional 0.5 MW and had sold wind power to more than a thousand residential and commercial customers.

In 1998, Tri-State Generation & Transmission Association, the largest cooperative utility in the state, announced that it would make green power (from new turbines at a windfarm in Wyoming) available to its 34 member co-ops. This appeared to be a response to the market success and media coverage of the other green pricing programs in the state. By April 1999, 14 of Tri-State's member utilities were offering wind power to their customers.

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