Massachusetts’ enactment of a new energy law to replace obsolete coal and nuclear power plants with hydropower and offshore wind represents a political victory for environmental groups and consumers.
It was also a victory for Unger LeBlanc Inc., which worked alongside many political leaders, private citizens, businesses and advocacy groups for more than a year in support of the legislation that Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law and which contains a requirement that the state’s utilities purchase 1,600 MW of power — about one-tenth of the state’s total energy supply — from wind farms that will built 15 to 25 miles off Martha’s Vineyard in one of the most dependably windy tracts of ocean anywhere.
We researched the prospective economic and environmental impact of a new offshore wind industry and used it to help build a website for Offshore Wind Massachusetts, an association working to start a U.S. offshore wind industry following successes in Europe.
We arranged interviews with reporters and editors, radio hosts and community and business groups, trying to win awareness and support. We did work for the New Bedford Wind Energy Center, which is dedicated to making the southeastern Massachusetts port city (it’s also the number 1 fishing port in the United States) the epicenter of the new industry that will be built over the next decade. We devised simple. clear messages that resonated with people.
We produced a highly successful digital campaign, “The Answer Are Blowing in the Wind,” to make the case to hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents, businesses and political leaders, and worked with community leaders to make their case in essays published by some of the state’s leading print and digital publications.
So when Gov. Baker put his pen to a bill that will make Massachusetts the home of the nation’s first industrial-scale wind farm, it wasn’t just business.
It was personal.
Alternative energy and offshore wind in particular have been passions of mine since my decade as the editor and associate publisher of SouthCoast Media Group, publisher of the daily newspaper serving New Bedford, and allied print and digital publications. That’s why at Unger LeBlanc Inc., we are happy to say that we are “dedicated to clients we believe in.”
And it is a privilege to work alongside so many others trying to do the right thing for Massachusetts and its citizens. We are grateful to the governor and his administration, our local legislative delegation, and the community leaders who earned this great moment for all of us.
— BOB UNGER