On May 21st, the Minnesota Environmental Initiative (MEI) presented National Wind with the 2009 Green Business and Environmental Management Award. The award recognizes National Wind’s business model of partnering with communities to build utility-scale wind farms. National Wind has more than 1000 landowner partners and over 1300 megawatts (MW) of locally-owned wind projects in development or operation in Minnesota alone.
The Minnesota Environmental Initiative is a 17-year-old nonprofit organization that works with other nonprofit, business and government groups to form partnerships towards the development of collaborative solutions to Minnesota’s environmental problems. Its annual awards program pays tribute to innovative projects that have achieved extraordinary outcomes for Minnesota's environment by harnessing the power of partnership.
“National Wind’s partnerships with communities are excellent examples of green business developments that help preserve the environment for future generations,” said MEI Executive Director, Mike Harley.
The key innovative component of National Wind’s business model is joint ownership with local landowners to develop utility-scale wind farms. Community owned wind farms provide greater financial benefits to local economies than non-community owned wind projects. National Wind couples these benefits with the economies of scale achieved by utility-scale wind development.
“By creating opportunities for community members to influence the development process and own a stake in the project, National Wind engenders broad support for clean energy and environmental stewardship,” said Harley.
We accepted this award on behalf of our employees, our rural farmer-partners and the thousands of landowners that participate in our projects. Without all of their involvement, this award would not be possible. Thank you for your support.
