EDF Climate Corps Blog

Today, Environmental Defense Fund launched a new class of EDF Climate Corps fellows to catalyze energy savings in organizations around the country. This year’s class is bigger than ever – with 116 students placed in 106 different organizations.

Last summer, EDF embedded nearly 100 EDF Climate Corps fellows in companies, cities and universities across the nation. EDF Climate Corps recruits and trains students from the nation’s top graduate programs to accelerate adoption of smart energy management practices in commercial America. Here’s what our EDF fellows learned about saving energy and curbing emissions in 2012. 

This blog post is the 16th in a series, highlighting our team of ‘sledgehammers’ – the 2012 EDF Climate Corps fellows– and their plans for breaking down the barriers to energy efficiency at their host organizations. In this segment, hear stories from fellows at the Smithsonian Institution and Belk.

This blog post is the 15th in a series, highlighting our team of ‘sledgehammers’ – the 2012 EDF Climate Corps fellows– and their plans for breaking down the barriers to energy efficiency at their host organizations. In this segment, hear stories from fellows at Commonwealth Financial Network, San Diego State University - Imperial Valley Campus and Carnival Corporation. 

This blog post is the 14th in a series, highlighting our team of ‘sledgehammers’ – the 2012 EDF Climate Corps fellows– and their plans for breaking down the barriers to energy efficiency at their host organizations. In this segment, hear stories from fellows at Volvo Mack Trucks, Ocean County and Booz Allen Hamilton. 

This blog post is the 13th in a series, highlighting our team of ‘sledgehammers’ – the 2012 EDF Climate Corps fellows– and their plans for breaking down the barriers to energy efficiency at their host organizations. In this segment, hear stories from fellows at Garysburg, Northampton County, CA Technologies and Envision Charlotte. 

At EDF Climate Corps, we aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by promoting aggressive energy efficiency in commercial buildings across the nation. For this reason, we are constantly working to share energy efficiency best practices with the 200+ organizations in our Network...

Recently, John Collins of Eaton shared a useful write-up of five best practices Google uses to manage the enormous energy consumption of its data centers.

After my summer as an EDF Climate Corps fellow at Compass Group North America (Compass) and years collaborating with the Net Impact network, I have become increasingly interested in the market discussion around the intertwined challenges of climate, water and food.

If you are familiar with facility management, you may know that facilities have finite annual budgets, and demand for capital predictably exceeds supply. Some projects like lighting controls may deliver carbon & financial savings; however, quantifying these savings requires time and specialized training, two equally scarce resources. Other projects, like replacing carpets, don’t deliver a return, but may still feel quite urgent to a facility manager. Without a trusted advisor to calculate and validate their economic and environmental benefits, energy-conserving lighting controls are stuck competing for the same funds as carpets.