Google Goes Green. Good Governance?

Yesterday, Google announced what "will be the largest solar installation on any corporate campus in the U.S." Today, the story's being reported throughout the blogosphere: Newsvine - Google to Convert HQ to Solar Power, Boing Boing - Googleplex goes solar, Tailrank - Corporate solar is coming. Normally, I'd treat such a story as simply another press release and wouldn't comment on it. In this case, the last paragraph of Google's blog entry caught my attention:

If the business community continues to increase investments and focus on energy efficient and renewable power generation technologies, we have a good feeling that our future will be bright. If you're interested, visit the Solar Electric Power Association.

I've been doing some work lately for a client in NJ, Oxford Solar, who is a member of the Solar Electric Power Association, which Google mentioned in the last sentence of their blog post. Unfortunately, the government of New Jersey isn't managing their clean energy program very well. See Renewable Energy Access - The Price of Success: Inside the NJ Clean Energy Program. Still, perhaps Google's solar energy announcement on the West Coast will spur more companies on the East Coast to think about installing solar panels.

Technorati tags: google, solar power, solar panels, PR, good corporate governance, renewable energy