American Electric Power 2008 Corporate Sustainability Report

4 Leadership, Management & Strategy DEAR STAKEHOLDERS, to improve their environmental, safety and health practices; we have become more engaged internationally, as well as nationally, in the drive to find achievable solutions for global climate change; and we continue to engage more of our stakeholders on a wider range of issues. Sustainability is a journey for AEP, but it must be a personal journey for our management and our employees, too. One of our continuing challenges is to spread our vision for sustainability throughout the company so that we all understand and embrace it and are aware of our personal roles in leading AEP into the future. We are developing a plan that will raise awareness among employees and embed sustainability within training, leadership communications, new employee orientation and day-to-day operations. Our employees and company have succeeded for more than 100 years by being innovative and bringing new technologies forward to address challenges. One of today’s greatest challenges is climate change and the solutions will affect AEP and our industry far into the future. As Mike Morris has said, we believe that advanced technology combined with an enlightened public and responsible regulation are the essential elements in addressing climate change. We are prepared to do our part. If we are to achieve a reasonable solution to global climate change, we have to significantly increase investments in new technologies and energy efficiency programs. Our job is to convince our customers and regulators that these investments are necessary and appropriate. We work continuously with our federal regulators, state public utility commissions, customers and legislators to convey our message and points of view. It is gratifying to hear from so many of our stakeholders that they believe we are making progress. But we know our actions speak much louder than any document and we recognize there is much more to do. Our environmental compliance performance was excellent in 2007; we made tremen- At AEP we are trying hard to balance meeting the needs of shareholders, customers, employees, communities, the environment, public health and the world in which we live. The better we strike this balance, the better we will do as a business. We live and work today in an interconnected world, side-by-side with many different stakeholders: advocates and community groups, neighbors, customers, investors, regulators and national and international political leaders. They often have different points of view from ours and from one another. We are starting to discover that by simply listening to each other and working together, we all make more informed and better decisions. AEP does not have all the answers to climate change or any other issue. But we are more likely to find the right answers by working closely with others to build knowledge, trust, mutual awareness and respect for each others’ needs. It is also vitally important that each of these groups interact in the same way with us. We have committed to you to be candid and transparent about our business. Last year we reached out to many of our stakeholders and collaborated with them throughout the year about climate change, technology, energy efficiency and transmission siting. Our first sustainability report gave us a meaningful vehicle for those discussions and we hope this one will as well. What we learn not only helps to shape this report but also to influence the decisions we make, the programs and practices we implement and our fundamental understanding of who we are and what we are about. I cannot emphasize enough that we view this document as much more than a “report”; rather, we see it as a road map for the future, guiding our actions and bringing us closer to our stakeholders. As a result of these discussions, we have become more aggressive about our own energy conservation and have begun to reduce the demand for electricity from our customers; we have started to work with our coal suppliers and others

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Electric Power 2008 Corporate Sustainability Report

American Electric Power 2008 Corporate Sustainability Report Contents Leadership, Management & Strategy A Message from Michael G. Morris A Message from Dennis E. Welch About This Report Environmental Performance Work Force Issues Public Policy Climate Change Energy Security, Reliability & Growth Stakeholder Engagement Glossary GRI Table of Contents

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