Since 2007, SustainAbility has helped American Electric Power (AEP), one of the largest electric utilities in the US, transform its approach to engagement and transparency in order to capture insights critical to the future of its business. Shortly after publishing its first sustainability report, AEP sought input on how to improve not only its reporting, but also its programs and performance. AEP joined SustainAbility’s Engaging Stakeholders Program and hired SustainAbility to design and facilitate a series of engagements with NGOs, employees, customers, regulators and other stakeholders. Building on the success of the first year, AEP contracted SustainAbility to design and facilitate additional meetings with stakeholders, tackling essential business issues such as climate change, mountaintop removal coal mining, energy efficiency, aging workforce, and health/safety. In Fall 2009 AEP, with SustainAbility’s support, convened a unique in industry meeting of NGOs and coal companies to explore, discuss and debate the impacts of coal mining, and how AEP should address the concerns of diverse stakeholders.

Over three years and numerous stakeholder meetings, AEP has firmly embedded engagement and transparency into their corporate culture. They have moved from an approach of caution and concern to one which welcomes diverse and contrary points of view, and have improved many of their policies, programs and practices as a result. AEP’s sustainability reports are held up as models of honest, forthright disclosure – its 2009 report was a Ceres-ACCA North American reporting awards finalist. In 2010 they published their first integrated financial/sustainability report, one of the first US companies to do so. AEP’s most senior executives are constant participants in stakeholder meetings, where they build valuable relationships with key influencers, more fully understand concerns and perceptions, and uncover novel ways to improve their business.