Crossposted from Charlotte Business Journal
Lynn Good, the new chief executive ofDuke Energy Corp., got a special greeting from Greenpeace on her first day on the job today.
The environmental activist group flew a banner around the Charlotte energy giants headquarters in uptown Monday with a message for Good.
It was a to-do list that read:
Duke Energy CEOs 1st Day:
Key to the executive restroom
Quit coal & nukes
Go solar
Only the first item on the list had a checkmark next to it.
“Fresh leadership provides an opportunity to reevaluate your strategy and chart a new path,” saidPhil Radford, executive director of Greenpeace in a statement about the banner. “Greenpeace congratulates Ms. Good on her new role, and welcomes an early opportunity to work with her to chart a course for Duke Energy to become both the largest and the cleanest electric utility in the U.S.”
Good, along with her predecessorJim Rogers,has been the face of Duke (NYSE: DUK) to Wall Street. She has run several divisions at Duke, including its commercial businesses, which include its South American and renewable-energy operations.
Greenpeace’s plane message to Good follows other actions by the organization, which often turns to the theatrical and humorous to get attention. In the past,Greenpeace has flown anti-Duke messages by airship,staged protests outside the public company’s shareholder meetingsand have hadactivists arrested in acts of civil disobedienceduring a demonstration against rate hikes.
Duke and Greenpeace are currently at legal odds with each other.Duke Energy Carolinas wants N.C. regulators to prevent Greenpeace from raising issues about its Cliffside coal plant, the Dan River natural gas plant and Dukes future use of renewablesin the rate hearing before theN.C. Utilities Commission.
