Brodeur Partners Launches Clean Technology Practice

BOSTON (Map) - "Clean Technology in Real Time" kickoff event Oct. 28 at Harvard Club to feature Fortune's Marc Gunther and a panel of top energy and environmental experts

BOSTON, Oct. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Brodeur Partners today launched its Clean Technology practice to help emerging and established companies attract public support for environmentally friendly technologies and sustainable "green" business strategies.

Brodeur Partners' new practice draws on 23 years of experience in business and consumer technology and the firm's global reach -- 80 offices in 50 countries across EMEA, North and South America and Asia-Pacific -- to provide world-class communications programs for environmental technology companies. Brodeur Partners subsidiary Beaupre & Co. Public Relations has joined forces with Brodeur to launch and drive the practice, which will focus on companies developing biofuels, solar, wind power and water purification/desalination technologies. The practice will also assist companies marketing components and software used in sustainable applications, and established companies communicating new environmental initiatives to employees, customers and the public.

More than 10 Brodeur Partners and Beaupre clients are involved in sustainability, clean technology and green initiatives. Among them is Advent Solar, a leading provider of silicon-based PV modules based on the recently launched Ventura(TM) Technology, the industry's first integrated cell-to-module architecture. In addition, Brodeur Partners' technology distribution client Avnet recently won Computerworld's "Best Practices in Green IT" award in the "Green IT in the Data Center" category based on a three-year project to create a more energy-efficient data center.

Laura Taylor, a vice president in Brodeur Partners' Washington, D.C. office and a communications professional with deep clean technology experience, and Andy Beaupre, CEO of Brodeur Partners' subsidiary Beaupre & Co., will lead the Clean Technology practice. The firms' talent pool also includes some of the top minds in communications, environmental advocacy and public policy, who will advise clients on managing issues influencing clean technology.

"Clean technology poses unique communications challenges," said Ed Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University. "The market is a complex combination of economics, politics, public policy and even morality, and clean tech companies need to balance those considerations when they're telling their story. Brodeur has designed a practice with those needs in mind."

Fortune magazine Senior Writer Marc Gunther will deliver a keynote address titled "The Clean Technology Revolution: Bigger than the Internet?" at the practice's kickoff event on Oct. 28, 8:30 to 11:30 a.m., at the Harvard Club in Boston. Gunther will also moderate "Cleantech in Real Time," a four-person panel of academics, venture capitalists, government and industry analysts spotlighting the major issues and trends the industry faces today. The Clean Technology practice will also release original media research describing blogging's influence on the clean technology media. Carbon offsets have been purchased to cover this event from carbonfund.org.

Proven leadership team to guide an emerging industry

Laura Taylor joined Brodeur Clean Technology from Edelman public relations, where she helped found the global clean technology practice and served as the Washington practice lead. Prior to Edelman's acquisition of A&R Partners, Taylor served as a senior member and helped architect the latter's clean technology practice, which was incorporated into Edelman. Taylor has counseled clean technology companies in the areas of public affairs and public relations. Her client experience includes working with a diverse portfolio from multi-national energy organizations, to venture-backed startups focused on renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Over his 33-year career, Andy Beaupre has built Beaupre & Co. Public Relations into a leading branding, communications and PR company. Beaupre became a Brodeur/Omnicom company in 1999. Beaupre currently represents several clients with environmental technology solutions, including Graphisoft, a developer of architectural software for designing sustainable buildings that meet LEED energy efficiency standards; and Boston-based Ember Corporation, which is a leading developer of wireless network control systems for energy conservation. Andy Beaupre is a member of Brodeur's leadership team.

"Environmental technology is at a lifecycle stage where it needs even greater support from investors, public policy makers and the public itself to blossom," said Brodeur Partners CEO Andrea Coville. "With more than 20 years experience counseling technology and consumer companies, we know how to help clean technology companies achieve their strategic endgames as they market products that ultimately enable us to live better lives."

About Brodeur Partners

Headquartered in Boston and owned by Omnicom Group, Inc. (NYSE: OMC), Brodeur Partners (www.brodeur.com) is a strategic communications group specializing in public relations, branding and communications. Founded in 1985, the company has 80 offices in 50 countries. It is differentiated by its ability to bring a discipline-agnostic approach to its consumer and business-to-business clients, including world-class minds within social media, public affairs, crisis, employee communications, ethnographic research, corporate social responsibility, multi-cultural marketing, higher education, clean technology, financial communications and healthcare. Brodeur Partners has two subsidiary organizations: Beaupre & Co. Public Relations in Portsmouth, N.H., (www.beaupre.com) and Rx Mosaic Health in New York City (www.rxmosaichealth.com).