An Emerald City Shade of Green

Some two months ago I wrote a post on General Electric’s latest “ecomagination” campaign, a drastic change from the General Electric that fought for decades over the cleaning of PBCs in the Hudson. Their fresh green outlook is more attractive to the new generations with global warming on the mind. After our discussion and debate in class I decided to take a look into the St. Lawrence Cement, SLC, company to see if they publicized a different view on their plants than the novel or movie may have shown.
In investigating I found a very similar story to that of General Electric. SLC’s website has information about the company and the locations of different plants, including Catskill. Although not as drastic a change as General Electric, SLC is clearly trying to keep up with the new environmentally friendly standards. In their press releases the first article, published on March 29, 2007, is entitled St. Lawrence Cement lauded for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The article link is attached, but it discusses SLC as one of the leading companies in greenhouse gas reductions. They were commended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for “having achieved significant greenhouse gas reductions under the EPA's Climate Leaders program”.
I personally see this as a great change for a company, who only ten years ago were being fined for air, land, and water pollution. I am willing to believe that this is a change brought on by the efforts of small non-profit groups like Friends of Hudson and Scenic Hudson. These groups have worked hard to keep SLC out of Hudson and it has obviously shown them that their environmental policies need a change. If small groups and large groups alike had allowed for the plant to have been build then SLC might not have needed the good publicity this greenhouse reducing recognition will give them. SLC may have come around to the color green at some point, but I have a feeling their defeat in Hudson gave them a jump start.

http://www.stlawrencecement.com/CA/ENC/id/1610646401/mod/gnm40/page/news.html