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In a ranking of its top 50 “Green Power Partners” released last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ranked Kohl’s Department Stores second in the nation. The State of Wisconsin also placed 41^st among the top 50 private sector and governmental partners.  But some green power advocates overlooked by the rankings, along with other critics, grumble that this federal PR push is missing the bigger picture.

Environmental sustainability has become a very hot commodity. To encourage companies and local governments to buy renewable energy, the EPA program offers to promote their admirable green efforts in quarterly rankings – if they promise to use a certain percentage of green power, depending on their size.

Solar-panel-crazy Kohl’s second place ranking put it one spot ahead of the eternally green Whole Foods chain of grocery stores and one behind the national leader, tech giant Intel Corp. The State of Wisconsin’s 41st place ranking left it ahead of most states, though behind Illinois and Connecticut. Companies and governments were rated simply by the total watts of green power purchased, but efforts to conserve energy that didn’t involve shifting to nonrenewable sources were not rewarded by the EPA.

In recent years, Kohl’s has become a national leader in green power by installing solar panels on the roofs of its stores in Milwaukee, Waukesha and elsewhere. According to Newsweek, the retailer has installed the panels at 80 locations, including distribution centers or other facilities in six states. Kohl’s now claims to use 100 percent green power. What its solar panels don’t generate, it buys from plants that burn landfill gas or wind farms.

By focusing on only U.S. facilities, some argue, the EPA is missing the global picture. “Kohl’s sells a lot of products made in foreign countries, which is another environmental issue,” says Peter Taglia, staff scientist for Clean Wisconsin, an environmental lobby group. “It’s really hard to show everything you want to with one single ranking. It would have been nice to see a trend line with respect to the specific industries that are moving away from coal.”

EPA Green Power Partners, as they’re called, “report to EPA green power usage information for their U.S. facilities only,” EPA spokesman Dave Ryan concedes. The top 50 ranking, he says, “is not a comprehensive organizational environmental scorecard.”

On average, state facilities are buying about 10 percent of their power from biogas, solar and wind sources. Doyle’s vision, the EPA says, “serves as the driver for the state’s clean energy plans.” A 2006 law backed by Doyle will require 10 percent of the electricity sold in the state by utilities to come from renewable sources.

But State Senator Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) isn’t as sold as the EPA on his state’s efforts. “Democrats in Wisconsin are more committed to driving up the cost of electric power rates,” he charges. “Republicans, naturally, are more thoughtful and skeptical on these issues.” He also takes issue with the lack of nuclear power on the EPA’s rankings. “I am very disappointed,” Grothman says. “This is a direct slap at the future of nuclear power.”

A competition for recognition?

Some critics argue it makes little sense to compare such wildly different organizations as state governments, manufacturing plants and retail businesses. Others say that by focusing only on members of the voluntary Green Power Partnership, the EPA is neglecting to promote other successes.

One organization feeling quite overlooked is UW-Madison, which hasn’t signed onto the program. Faramarz Vakili, director of campus sustainability operations, says the university would have placed in one of the EPA’s rankings, the top 20 colleges and universities by green power, if it had been a partner. “Last year alone, 36 million kilowatts of electricity were purchased from wind power,” he says. The school is also investing $250 million over the next three years to turn its coal power plant into one fueled by biomass.

Concordia University in Mequon is also generating green power without much attention from the EPA. “I’m looking out my window at a 24 kilowatt solar array on the roof of one of our residence halls. We do have a lot (of green power initiatives) going on, and there are surely other universities in Wisconsin doing the same thing,” says Bruce Bessert, director of the new Concordia Center for Environmental Stewardship, which opens to the public on Sept. 25.

To the critics of the EPA list, the EPA asks “The better question is, why hasn’t every competitor or colleague of an organization listed on the ‘top 50’ matched the commitments highlighted there?”

Only two UW campuses, those in Stevens Point and Oshkosh, are Green Power Partners. Neither appeared on the EPA rankings. UW-Milwaukee uses natural gas, a cleaner alternative to coal, but couldn’t follow Madison’s lead in burning biomass, according to Andrew Nelson, associate director of facility services.

“We don’t have the luxury of using bio-fuels. There is no way we could get away with that,” he says. “We are an urban university.” The fuel would have to be trucked in, which might be unsafe for the surrounding community, he says. Madison’s power plant, while also located in an urban neighborhood, benefits from adjacent train tracks. Officials there are still working out how to accommodate the significant increase in train traffic the biomass conversion will bring to the neighborhood.

Although the EPA has many critics regarding its green power rankings, some environmental groups support its methods. “There are a lot of criticisms that can be made, but I think it’s still good to reward businesses for doing some truly great things,” says Dr. Shahla Werner, director of the Wisconsin chapter of the Sierra Club.

Says Ryan, “Even the smallest purchase included in the program constitutes leadership beyond business as usual. Every single organization listed in the Green Power Partnership has made a proactive, voluntary commitment to go above and beyond standard practice.”

One thing’s for sure. They’ve left some of their non-partners green with envy.

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