The concept of sustainability has been embraced by business and community leaders around the world as a means to ensure long-term growth and prosperity. Sustainability is broadly defined as meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainability requires that we strive to balance the "triple bottom line" of Community Betterment, Environmental Stewardship, and Financial Strength. At Ameren, we embrace this concept and have long actively pursued sustainable practices in many areas across our company.
  
Over the years we have championed a number of programs that contribute to a sustainable future, such as our focus on safety, diversity and the environment. Our new vision and strategic plan are fostering additional sustainable practices, including:

• A strong commitment to energy efficiency
• Expanded access to renewable energy resources
• A more robust plan to reduce Ameren's carbon footprint
• A commitment to enhance the viability of our communities
• Reinforcement of our core values of integrity, respect, accountability, stewardship, teamwork and a commitment to excellence
• Scenario planning and long-range financial modeling, and
• More disciplined capital management practices

   
I feel very strongly about these concepts and know sustainable practices are essential to our financial success. To provide leadership and direction in pursuing sustainability, we have established a Corporate Sustainability Council. This council will research and recommend policies and goals for improvement, track our sustainable practices, develop methods to engage our employees and stakeholders on the issue, and help guide Ameren to be a more sustainable corporation.
  
We are in the process of developing some exciting new initiatives to expand and communicate our sustainable practices. These include significantly increasing our recycling efforts, incorporating sustainability and supplier diversity focus in the procurement process for goods and services, and a pilot program to build employee engagement in developing sustainable practices at the work site.
  
I encourage you to support and enhance our sustainability efforts. Our commitment to sustainability is key to accomplishing our vision of leading the way to a security energy future.

THOMAS R. VOSS
Chairman, President & CEO
Ameren Corporation