Consumers Energy is the public utility that provides electricity to my home. But rather than merely monitor my kilowatt hours and send me a bill, Consumers goes above and beyond in its communication.
They have shown this in two power outages in as many months in my small neighborhood in west Michigan. They have prompt text alerts and an up-to-date app confirming they know about the outage, showing the extent of the outage with numbers and maps, updating when crews are on site and have determined the cause, and giving an estimate of time for power restoration, and confirming when power is restored. It gives new meaning to consumer “empowerment.”
Consumers is also a unique organization. It is in a sense a corporation, but it is one that is regulated, in the case of Michigan by the Public Service Commission. So Consumers does what could be seen as typical corporate communication, another name for public relations, to maintain communications with all of its stakeholders. This can often seem weighted toward customer relations and sales.
But a recent communication I received from them included an example of the intersection between traditional communication and environmental communication. Environmental communication is broadly defined as formal communication that has the environment as a primary subject. There is even an academic journal named Environmental Communication.
What Consumers sent me was a link to an entire section on their website about electronic vehicles (EVs). This makes intuitive sense, since anyone like myself who buys an EV is going to be wondering about how to charge the vehicle, whether at home or out on the road. Installing EV chargesr at homes is one of the products and services Consumers offers. The Consumers web page explains this at length.
It would make sense they do this in business terms. It is a new market opportunity, a product extension, a B-B integration and more. But that is all corporate communication. Consumers gets into environmental communication as well with a tab called “myths and FAQs” that addresses the hesitance a typical consumer may have about buying and charging an EV. They first have to answer questions about the environmental need for EVs, the environmental benefit of EVs, and address concerns about negative environmental impact of EVs, before they can start serving consumers individually and society at large—via power grid supply—when the purchase of EVs hits critical mass.
As an academic, this brings to mind a bunch of theories that are so practical here. Consumers is applying concepts from these theories, whether they do so consciously or not:
- Diffusion of Innovation—which means communication needs to address a series of cognitive and experiential stages the public goes through collectively and individually before adopting new ideas. Consumers is addressing the “relative advantage” and “compatibility” stages of this theory directly;
- Attribution Theory—in which people consider not just what a company says but why they think they are saying it when deciding whether to attend to or believe a message. Consumers goes beyond simply offering product or service information to sell something to show they are considering the total social benefit to the environment;
- Cognitive Dissonance—in which people avoid ‘cognitive pain’ by simply discounting information or claims that contradict their predisposition or current beliefs; Consumers is clearly addressing current beliefs and concerns of people and trying to move them to a new mindset without discounting their current onel.
I think Consumers did a good job overall. But there are still realities that people experience that negate the arguments Consumers makes. This is especially true in Michigan.
For example, one argument could be that an EV may not be a household’s only vehicle. If I want to go from where I live in western Michigan up to Mackinac City, I would not be confident I have the range and can find a charging station in northern Michigan. Encouraging one EV on a household of more than one car would be a transition and easier to persuade than a complete change to all EV vehicles.
I also have read legitimate reports about power reduction in colder climates, as well as batteries exploding. There are concerns about raw materials coming from third-world countries where workers are exploited, and that these raw materials can not be safely disposed of. Here is where the Elaboration Likelihood Model applies—Consumers can’t just make claims to the contrary, it needs to offer some detailed, factual, respectable studies to back up the claims. When people are “highly involved” according to ELM, they are paying significant attention and need more than a reliable source, they need the facts. This is especially true because EVs are really a subset of the much larger climate change social issue.
Most importantly, if we are charged more in the summer for air conditioning in peak hours, what will our rates and even capacity be when everyone is in an EV and charging at night? Consumers makes assurances, but people have heard and experienced differently about the electric grid capacity.
Maybe some of these additional arguments and facts will come. But for now overall Consumers Energy offers a good example of how corporate and environmental communication co-exist.
