Clinton Global Initiative Inaugural Meeting is Climate Neutral with help from NativeEnergy
Historic conference helps Native American Tribes build wind farms and sustainable economies, and fights global warming
Charlotte, VT (September 15, 2005) - NativeEnergy, the leading American Indian-owned renewable energy company, and the William J. Clinton Foundation, announced today that the Clinton Global Initiative, in a demonstration of its commitment to its mission of promoting business strategies to combat global warming, will offset the impact of its energy use by helping finance new Native American-owned wind farms with NativeEnergy. Utilizing carbon offsets equal to the amount of energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution that conference activities will generate, the Clinton Global Initiative is fighting global warming and helping Native America begin to restore sustainable homeland economies in balance with the Earth.
Fossil fuels will power the aircraft, autos, and trains that transport every conference attendee, and conference electricity will come mostly from burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas. The CO2 pollution from fossil fuels is the primary contributor to global warming. To meet the conference's energy needs without contributing to global warming, the Clinton Foundation looked to NativeEnergy, whose innovative business strategy directly drives new construction of clean, renewable energy projects.
Key to choosing NativeEnergy was the Clinton Global Initiative's insistence that their effort have the highest "additionality," as it is known in the renewable energy industry. With NativeEnergy, the conference ensures that its CO2 offsetting actually contributes directly to the construction of new, Native-owned renewable energy generators whose clean electricity will displace energy that would otherwise have to come from polluting coal-fired plants, reducing CO2 and other pollution on behalf of the Clinton Global Initiative.
NativeEnergy was also selected for its proven capabilities. In May, NativeEnergy helped make the United Nations 2005 Institutional Investors Summit on Climate Risk the first "climate neutral" event ever held at U.N. Headquarters. The company also boasts a client list of leading environmentally and socially responsible organizations, including: Ben & Jerry's, Stonyfield Farm, The Timberland Company, Aveda Corporation, Clif Bar, Inc., Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Dave Matthews Band, Ceres, Seventh Generation, College of the Atlantic, Co-op America, and the Environmental Media Association.
With NativeEnergy, the Clinton Global Initiative will help build wind projects such as the turbine planned for construction on the Fort Berthold Reservation of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation in North Dakota, and keep an estimated 1,000 tons of CO2 pollution out of the air over the project's life. The Clinton Global Initiative, in working with NativeEnergy, is demonstrating how to turn attention toward positive solutions to global problems.
Majority owned by the Intertribal Council On Utility Policy ("COUP"), NativeEnergy is helping finance an 80 Megawatt (MW) distributed wind project hosted in 10 MW "clusters" at eight different COUP reservations. In addition to providing enough clean energy to power more than 23,000 homes, these wind farms will also create jobs and new revenues for some of the nation's poorest tribes. This initiative follows the success of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe wind project, the first and only 100% Native American-owned and operated commercial-scale wind facility.
About NativeEnergy: NativeEnergy is a national marketer of renewable energy credits or "green tags," offering individuals and organizations a means to compensate for their global warming pollution, or to effectively power their homes and businesses with renewable energy. NativeEnergy's patent-pending business process brings upfront payment to renewable projects for their future green tag output, enabling its customers to help finance the construction of new wind farms and other renewable energy projects, such as tribal wind projects and methane digesters on family dairy farms, which directly reduce our reliance on fossil fuels to meet the nation's electricity needs. Online at: www.NativeEnergy.com.
About Intertribal Council On Utility Policy: The Intertribal COUP is a nonprofit council of federally recognized Indian tribes in North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa, with affiliates throughout the northern Great Plains. Organized in 1994, it is chartered under the laws of the Rosebud Sioux Reservation to provide a tribal forum for policy issues dealing with telecommunications and energy utility operations and services. Intertribal COUP strongly adheres to the principles of tribal self-determination and ecological sustainability, supporting the development of sustainable homeland economies built upon renewable energy resources. Online at: www.intertribalcoup.org
Contacts:
Billy Connelly, NativeEnergy, 617-877-6745, billy.connelly@nativeenergy.com
Patrick Spears, Intertribal COUP, 605-945-1908, pnspears2@aol.com
