PITTSBURGH -- New avenues were explored as how to best inform the public about energy issues at Hart Energy’s recent DUG East conference, where speakers described efforts to reach out to the “rational middle” as opposed to the extremes of the “not over my dead body” segment at one end of the spectrum and the “drill, baby, drill” crowd at the other.

Susan Packard LeGros, executive director with the Center for Sustainable Shale Development, said her message emphasizes the environmental lobby and the industry working together. She highlighted a new “certification process” under which an international auditor would examine whether companies’ drilling practices met specified standards, providing the basis for greater confidence among the public. With the certification being voluntary, E&Ps’ “uptake of certification” would be a measure of progress, she said.

Andrew Browning, executive vice president with the Consumer Energy Alliance, cited the importance of reaching out beyond traditional oil and gas spheres of influence. In addition to oilfield jobs in the energy producing states, he suggested drawing attention to the creation of manufacturing jobs stemming from cheap energy supplies. An example he cited was CF Industries, with headquarters in Deerfield, Ill., which decided to invest $3.8 billion in new fertilizer facilities. He also pointed to a forecast that women and minorities would occupy 30% of jobs in the energy industry in 2030.

The Consumer Energy Alliance sponsors a website named The Energy Voice. It covers events in many of the Gulf Coast states and Appalachia, but its goal is to fill out its coverage to include all U.S. states, Browning said.

Matthew Henderson, who is shale gas asset manager, Community & Economic Development, with the Penn State Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research, acknowledged that there is “a much more informed audience” today. People want to know “what’s going on downhole,” he said. And to this end, he says that by bringing in experts to address audiences “you get a better buy-in.”

Henderson recommended using vignettes on YouTube and other social media avenues to reach out to different groups. For example, he suggested using a vignette to demonstrate that fracking was just a part of the overall process of energy discovery and extraction. And industry employees can also be effective. “The industry is its best ambassador,” he said. And while training in public relations may help, “not all employees need to be PR experts to do that,” he said.

Henderson drew chuckles in describing working with international groups that in some cases would come to Pennsylvania with preconceived notions that portrayed the oil and gas industry in an unfavorable light. He recalled how such groups would be driven through Lycoming and Bradford counties and would then ask when they would have an opportunity to see oil and gas developments—only to be told they had already passed hundreds of oil and gas wells.