I suspect your concern stems from the fact that Alcoa ranked 15th on the Toxic 100 in 2008. But I don’t think their environmental problems reflect poorly on the Pew Center. If anything, I find it encouraging that the company is working with groups like the Pew Center to clean up its act.

The Pew Center’s site was chosen as the site of the month because I thought it provided a lot of good information on a subject that would be useful to many businesses in the Great Lakes region. I am unaware of anything that the Pew Center may have done to have a tarnished reputation, and I don’t believe it is logical or appropriate to have doubts about the Pew Center’s respectability because of the reputations of the companies it is working with. One might apply a similar “guilt by association” standard to any technical assistance provider that works with a company trying to clean up its act in terms of pollution, but that would be counter productive. The idea of technical assistance providers and organizations concerned with environmental protection and pollution prevention is to reach out and help people and businesses lessen their negative environmental impacts. In fact, a colleague pointed out to me that Alcoa is also a member of the U.S. EPA Climate Leaders Program, but I don’t think that would be reason to refrain from promoting that program or its resources on the GLRPPR web site, do you?