AT On... Will You Join Us?

It's odd to see a big oil company touting conservation, but that's exactly what Chevron is doing. And for us, it's reaching saturation levels—we feel like the woman holding a sign reading, "I will install a programmable thermostat" is becoming an old friend...

We laughed after seeing a bus decorated for the campaign—scrawled over one of the windows was the phrase "I will at least consider a hybrid." But the unintentional irony did provoke us to visit Chevron's website. There we found a visualization of conservation behavior Chevron calls the "energy generator." Say you switch out one regular light bulb for a CFL. Presto: you've just saved enough energy to write 429 blog posts, or to microwave 1332 bags of popcorn.

Our concern, though, is that the slot-machine style of the "energy generator" makes the different energy conservation measures seem interchangeable. In fact, some things save so much energy that they break the energy generator: try it and see what happens if you ride your bike to work more than 7 times per year. So, is Chevron's campaign just really savvy marketing, or can big oil really lead the way toward conservation?

Comments (1)

It's all greenwashing.
... however, most oil companies do have some little bit of R&D toward sustainable energy, because they know the oil won't last forever. The ones that make a breakthrough first may well lead the energy revolution. As far as advocating conservation... that's all lip service.

posted by whytephoenix on November 4th 2008 at 11:12am
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