Consumer Reports

Every day, American consumers spend about $1 billion just on gasoline, and another $500 million for electricity. Consumers of these products have a powerful collective voice that is represented, in part, by Consumer Reports (formerly known as Consumers Union). This grant will help Consumer Reports flex consumer power to reduce global warming pollution and provide consumers with safe and equitable energy and transportation choices.

A grant to Consumers Union will help the organization produce new research and education materials to explain the encryption policy debate to consumers and ensure that a sophisticated and balanced consumer voice is part of that debate. More specifically, Consumers Union will: (a) hold a series of conversations exploring the outlines, context, and key issues surrounding consumers and encryption; (b) publish a study spotlighting the growing importance of encryption and digital security for consumers; and (c) develop and launch a public-facing tool that helps consumers understand encryption (from technical and policy perspectives).

With funding from the Hewlett Foundation, Consumers Union will add communications capacity to its Climate and Clean Energy program. This added capacity will help Consumers Union engage more consumers and amplify the consumer voice in state and federal campaigns to reduce pollution from energy sources while lowering energy bills.