Scaling Clean

On April 11, the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) held a fascinating media roundtable at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. ACORE President Michael Brower set the tone for the panels with his introductory remarks, in which he stressed that "renewable energy resources have historically held the goodwill of the majority of the American public," but that media coverage doesn't necessarily reflect that - or "align with the reality of the marketplace." As Brower explained, the media has over-reported the relatively infrequent cleantech failures, while under-reporting its overwhelming successes. And, Brower added, many of those successes are happening in the states, where from "Maine to Georgia, to Kansas to Oregon and all those states in between," we see "a new emergence of bipartisan-ism on clean and renewable energy."

An article in the Washington Post, "Serious reading takes a hit from online scanning and skimming, researchers say," got us thinking: What impact, if any, might this change in the way we process information in the digital, social media age impact cleantech marketing? We'll share our thoughts in a minute, but first, here are a few key points from the Post article.