The image on the big screen at the restaurant last night was too much to ignore: Bob Costas and his NBC colleagues were conducting their halftime show in the dark — with a news ticker scrolling across the bottom of the screen explaining what we were seeing and why.

Curious, and trying to remember what she'd seen in NBC promos last week, Alisan asked me "isn't Matt Lauer going to the Arctic as part of this Green is Universal initiative?" As soon as she asked the question, there Lauer was, standing outside an igloo previewing the upcoming week of NBC Universal programming.

As Joel Makower asks in his Two Steps Forward blog:

What, really, is NBC doing? Is this a one-off stunt intended to "green up" its image before it returns to, as they say, regularly scheduled programming? Or is this something more substantive, more integrated, longer-term — a milestone in the greening of the mainstream media?

According to Makower's post, there are three key audiences NBC Universal is trying to reach: consumers, advertisers and the company's 16,000 employees around the world.

In an interview, Makower asked Lauren Zalaznick, president of Bravo Media, who heads NBC Universal's Green Council:

Does the typical viewer of college football care that next Saturday's Air Force vs. Notre Dame match-up will include a segment featuring Notre Dame student's and faculty's quest to capture carbon dioxide from power plants?

Zalaznick replied, citing research conducted last month in which NBC Universal measured viewers' environmental awareness, habits, and expectations:

We heard loud and clear that there was a very high expectation that consumers have about companies. Over two-thirds believe that businesses have some responsibility for the social good. That's a lot.

Zalaznick goes on to say the company plans to track audience awareness and actions over time.

We'd like to hear back that we've had an actual impact — that we caused viewers to buy a hybrid, to not buy plastic water bottles, to turn off their power strip instead of the on-off-standby switch. We want those kinds of activation results.

I'm a firm believer that TV drives way too many consumer choices, but this time I'm very supportive of the effort NBC Universal is making to increase consumer awareness and influence choice.

Carbon Neutral Journal's choices are brought to you by Jorgensen Associates.

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