American Electric Power 2008 Corporate Sustainability Report

60 Stakeholder Engagement have begun a communications initiative, called “Sustainability in Action,” that will regularly use existing newsletters and web-based tools to identify examples of what sustainability means to AEP and how it affects employees and the company’s business strategy. Our customers are also part of our stakeholder engagement process. We communicate with them in many ways, including monthly bill inserts, customer newsletters, media advertising, web sites, customer call center agents, field representatives and account managers. Our customer service employees and call center representatives have direct contact with customers on all aspects of our business. We survey our customers quarterly and last year we saw customer satisfaction increase from 83 percent in 2006 to 83.7 percent in 2007. AEP ranks 10th among 60 utilities nationally in customer satisfaction. Mark Dempsey, front, vice president of external affairs for AEP in West Virginia, and Frank Brown, who lives along Morris Creek, stock trout in the creek, which was dead to aquatic life at the beginning of the century. AEP worked with local residents to restore the creek so it could support life. PHILANTHROPY Our corporate giving program has a special emphasis on improving lives through education from early childhood through higher education. Other areas of focus are protecting the environment; providing basic human services in the areas of hunger, housing, health and safety; and enriching the quality of life through art, music and cultural heritage. Support for each of these is critical for successful communities. In 2007 AEP’s philanthropic investments totaled $15.6 million. While corporate giving is often measured in dollars and cents, it doesn’t always take money to improve someone’s quality of life. For example, Indiana Michigan Power Co. sponsored a Habitat for Humanity house in Fort Wayne, Ind., that is now home to a refugee family from Myanmar (formerly Burma). The company also donated computers to provide family learning experiences and laptops for at-risk pregnant women who are bedridden. The computers allow them to stay in touch with loved ones and access information about their health. For more information about AEP’s corporate giving, please visit www.AEP.com. cialized communications. In 2007, we launched an internal blog that allows employees to sound off on a range of issues important to them. “Open Mike” is another employee forum that meets privately and regularly with the CEO. Participation in Open Mike rotates to allow for broader participation; 25 employees are part of this program each year. One of our challenges is employee understanding of sustainability, especially as it relates to their jobs day-today. During our employee stakeholder meetings we heard that if it had not been for their participation in this process, many employees would not have known about the report or AEP’s sustainability strategy. Clearly, we have to change this view. We are developing a cross-functional team to create an action plan for routinely incorporating sustainability into training, new employee orientation and individual goal development. We http://www.AEP.com

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

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.