Last year we wrote in "Green Spirit", about the wave of environmental sentiment sweeping the US. The New Yorker had captured the mood in a cartoon depicting one plant executive asking another whether they could dye the smoke from the stacks green.
The most unlikely corporations were hopping all over themselves to play green. BP had just launched two sites, The Green Curve, and A Little Better Gas Station, complete with games like "Gas Mania" and kid friendly distractions. The BP sites are no longer standalone so not quite so much fun, but have been incorporated into bp.com in all their original kelly green and neon yellow glory.
These sites come and go, and of course now other companies have launched a new crop of green spirit. First up is Chevron's www.willyoujoinus.com. "Will you join us" is a collaboration between The Economist, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS, and the oil company. The site tells us that "the demand for energy becomes greater, and every day it becomes harder to find". Driving home the point, a global oil consumption ticker spins through millions of barrels consumed during your site visit. The homepage asks viewers to "join the discussion". I suppose it would be impertinent to ask them to put a profits ticker underneath the consumption ticker -- "finding energy" is research and capital intensive.
The current discussion topic is "Global Food Prices & Energy Supplies, Finding a Balance". Fortunately, it's not all gloom and doom, you can "Play Energyville" too.
