Today, we’re continuing our discussion series on the use of digital tools to build community acceptance by wind energy independent power producers (IPPs). We’re pleased to do that with our friend, Paul Copleman, Director of Communications with Avangrid Renewables. Paul’s company is one of the leading renewable energy IPPs with large asset bases both in the U.S. and across the globe.

Across clean energy sectors, sales and marketing teams we talk to share a common challenge: It has gotten harder to get prospects to engage.

That’s because the ubiquitous use of digital platforms (think smartphones, tablets, Alexa) and abundance of published content has changed the way buyers are purchasing.

Consider your own buying behavior. The last time you went to purchase anything over $100, did you Google it first? Check the reviews or comps online?

By Mike Casey and Noah Ginsberg

What were cleantech leaders thinking in 2017?

Earlier in the year, Tigercomm conducted a Cleantech Leaders Survey to shed light on the major trends that leading cleantech executives are seeing in the industry. All the participants were current CEOs, presidents, board members, or managing directors of leading cleantech companies. These views were gathered before passage of the major tax bill; nonetheless, we believe their insights remain relevant and illuminating, given the tax bill’s minimal impact on the companies these leaders run.

Returning visitors to the Tigercomm blog will likely notice that something is different here: Tigercomm has rebranded our blog. Previously known as “ScalingGreen,” we are excited to bring you future content and insights from “ScalingClean.”

It’s what matters most to marketing and sales teams in any industry: Measuring success.

A recent article in the Financial Times yet again drives home the fact that dirty energy, particularly coal, "has no future."

See below for video of Chris Brown of Vestas, keynoting the opening session on day two of WINDPOWER 2017, concluding today in Anaheim, CA. According to Brown, who is completing his tenure as Chair of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the next five years will be the "best five years of your life" for the wind power industry. Brown adds: "So along with the success that we've been having, if you've become afraid, then I say good! Welcome to life as an energy industry disruptor." And Brown notes that "critics criticize...but ask yourself, why do those critics pay attention to us? Because we're a threat, because we're winning." A few more quotes from Brown's excellent speech:

By Mike Casey and Sarah Lippincott

In energy markets across the country, from Texas to California to New Jersey and states like Iowa in between – electricity generated from renewables is rapidly becoming cheaper than fossil fuel generation. The increasing cost advantage of renewable energy has become a talking point for clean energy and climate change advocates. It’s also become a selling point for businesses looking to identify markets where its easiest and most beneficial to heavily invest in renewables.

Chris Brown, chairman of the board of the American Wind Energy Association and president of Vestas-American Wind Technology, Vestas’ North American business unit, has a piece in the Austin American-Statesman that explains very well why wind power is winning in Texas and across America. A few key points worth highlighting include:

by Dan Bellows, Account Associate at Tigercomm

We read with great interest cleantech industry leader Andrew Beebe's thought piece, The Revenge of the Long Tail: Small, distributed solar companies are retaking the industry. Here’s why.  The following excerpt captures what Beebe's main point is.

When author and public speaker Brene’ Brown talked about “the power of vulnerability” at TEDx Houston in 2010, she was speaking as a researcher, a professor at the University of Houston and a #1 New York Times best-selling author. Brown’s credibility got her onstage, but credibility alone is not what got her to the top-10 most-viewed TED talks in the world. That accomplishment was likely the result of Brown taking her own advice.

By Sarah Lippincott and Mike Casey, excerpt from Social Wind.

Over at The Guardian, Vestas' CEO Anders Runevad argues convincingly that "the future belongs to clean energy." Not surprisingly, given that that Vestas bills itself as "the global leader in wind energy," Runevad focuses on wind power, as opposed to other forms of clean energy. Among other things, Runevad argues that:

by Tigercomm President Mike Casey

By Mike Casey, President of Tigercomm

A new INDIEGOGO video by Green Commuter explains, "every year American spend nearly a week stuck in traffic," which takes time away from other important stuff and adds to environmental pollution. To address this problem, Green Commuter has "developed an App that allows you to use our own fleet of Tesla Model X for van pools during commuting hours and as a car share the rest of the time." This is both "affordable" and "environmentally friendly," and given that the vehicles are used efficiently, "we can afford to make our rates one of the lowest in the industry." In the end, the goal is "saving the planet as well as saving your dollar."

We're releasing the first-ever study of social media use by major wind companies, showing a nearly 63 percent usage rate of the major social media channels by 14 top wind companies. But with the industry's rapid growth comes an opportunity for wind companies to use social media strategies to drive sales and secure public affairs outcomes.

We recently had a chance to speak with Haruumi Shiode, founder and CEO of a startup called Nature, Inc. This company’s focus is on improving residential demand management, and specifically through the use of smart controls for window-mounted or through-wall air conditioners. These types of A/C units are very common in parts of the United States like the northeast, where 58% of households with air conditioning have them. According to Shiode, Nature’s goal is to make it easy for people to save energy – and money – by allowing them to control their room air conditioners remotely.

The great folks at DeSmogBlog have yet another excellent piece up, this one looking at "How Propaganda (Actually) Works." Here's an excerpt, followed by a few possible lessons for the clean energy industry.

One of the biggest challenges in marketing is how to generate more leads and close more sales. The good news: inbound marketing is making it much easier to do those things. Today, three out of four marketers across the globe are taking an inbound approach to marketing.

The B2B (business-to-business) environment is rapidly changing. Most of this change is driven by businesses modeling the purchasing behavior of the general population by using personal and professional networks, as well as information available online, to inform decision making. This “crowd sourcing” of solutions is a paradigm shift for any business that provides products, services or information to other businesses.

Last fall, we highlighted great work by the Checks and Balances Project (C&BP) watchdog group on the fossil-fuel-funded front group, the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC), which has been a vociferous opponent of clean energy and climate solutions.  We also wrote about C&BP's October 28, 2015 lawsuit against the Arizona Attorney General’s Office and Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC), demanding immediate access to public records on Commissioner Bob Stump’s taxpayer-funded smartphone.

We've been beating the drum for several years about the need for cleantech to play "full contact" against the fossil fuel lobby. Back in December 2010, for instance, Tigercomm Founder and President Mike Casey argued that the growing success of solar and wind power had caused "dirty energy industries [to spend] significant resources to harden the marketing and sales environment against cleantech's success." Casey related key lessons learned from a panel of cleantech communicators convened during the 2010 Solar Power International (SPI) trade show:

Recently, we summarized a fascinating, 132-page report by Citi, which confirmed (yet again) that switching from fossil fuels to clean energy makes sense not just environmentally, but also economically. Now, we've put together an easy-to-read, easy-to-share infographic, highlighting the key findings from Citi's report. If you're interested in receiving the infographic, just click on the image below, provide us with your contact information, and we'll email it to you right away. Thanks!

We thought that a quick guide to a few cleantech podcasts would be helpful for communicators, analysts, investors and industry professionals who want to stay on top of this dynamic, far-flung sector. Here are a few that jumped out at us; please let us know if there are others you listen to and would recommend in the comments below.

Yesterday, we posted on two recent interviews with Vestas CEO Anders Runevad. One of the questions, by a CNBC on-air correspondent, really jumped out at us:

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by Mike Casey, Tigercomm President

Q: "Why doesn't ocean acidification get the same attention as climate change?"

A: "Too many syllables. It's not a good hashtag."

This was the tongue-in-cheek answer to a serious question that I found myself giving, as a panelist in front of a crowd of 200 people at Cross Campus in Santa Monica, California.

Tigercomm's Ultimate Cheat Sheet of 100 Cleantech Buzzwords

Cleantech is one of the fastest growing sectors in the economy, with over 1 million jobs created worldwide in 2014 alone.  This growth means the cleantech sector is pulling in engineers, finance experts, communication professionals, human resources heads, etc. from other industries. Entering a new position anywhere can be challenging, and the world of cleantech certainly has many terms of art.

For years, we've watched as the entrenched, increasingly antiquated, but politically-well-connected and heavily-subsidized dirty energy industry has attempted to slander wind, solar and other clean energy sources as...well, basically lame in every way.  One of the dirty energy folks' implicit themes has been that, somehow, fossil fuels are uniquely suited to fulfilling the American Dream, while clean energy is some sort of alien force that is inherently more suited to "socialist" Europe than to the "capitalist" United States. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, which is why it's great to see articles like the one by Jigar Shah and Raj Pannu in Fortune on how green energy is, in fact, quintessentially "red, white and blue." Here are a few great lines that jumped out at us.

By Bridgette Borst

UPDATE 9/17: Please click here to read why we are downgrading Gov. Chris Christie from "B" to "D" on our report card.

by Mike Casey

By Bridgette Borst

By Lowell Feld, Guest Columnist

Here are five recommended reads for today (6/1/15).

Reports of 37,000 text messages – Checks & Balances Project's Scott Peterson raises questions about public accountability and cozy links between energy utility and regulators in Arizona

Here are five recommended reads for today (5/12/15).

Here are five recommended reads for today (5/4/15).

Here are five recommended reads for today (4/17/15).

Here are five recommended reads for today (4/13/15).

Here are five recommended reads for today (3/24/15).