Forging key business partnerships

Our partnerships with companies focus on environmental measures that save money.

Walmart: World’s largest retailer

No company has a greater potential to effect environmental change than Walmart — which is why we opened a Bentonville office down the street from their headquarters in 2007.

Today, we're working with Walmart to make sure they reach their commitment to eliminate 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution by 2015, which will reduce carbon emissions equivalent to taking 3.8 million cars off the road for one year.  

Our next steps are to implement energy efficiency measures "upstream"—in the factories that supply Walmart's suppliers—and create the financing needed to spread these improvements to factories throughout China. 

Climate Corps: Training tomorrow’s chief executives

Our fellowship program places MBAs in the biggest U.S. corporations— AT&T, Facebook, McDonalds, Microsoft, Target and more — to develop practical, actionable energy efficiency plans.

Since Climate Corps began, our fellows have uncovered energy efficiency methods that could:

• avoid carbon pollution equivalent to 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, which is about the annual emissions of 200,000 passenger vehicles.  
• cut 1.6 billion kilowatt hours of electricity use and 27 million therms of natural gas annually, equivalent to the annual energy use of 88,000 homes
• save $1 billion in net operational costs over the project lifetimes

Eight of every 10 former Climate Corps fellows now have direct influence over the energy budgets in the companies where they work. 

'Treasure hunting' for energy savings

EDF partners with labor unions to help teach them how to sleuth out energy efficiency measures. This valuable job training helps bring new climate change allies on board. So far the program has led to results like this:

• 9% cut in annual carbon emissions and 10% in annual energy costs at CG Power in Washington, MO
• 20% cut in both annual carbon emissions and annual energy costs at Cobasys in Springboro, OH
• 13% reduction in annual carbon emissions and 14% in annual energy costs at Sheboygan Paper Box Company in Sheboygan, WI

"The treasure hunt team showed us how simply changes can lead to significant reductions in waste and energy consumptions," said J.P. Davis, General Manager at CG Power.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts: Green returns for private equity investment

Our work helping private equity firms find ways to reduce environmental impacts while building more valuable, competitive companies provides us with powerful means to impact a wide range of businesses across the economy.

FedEx: Launching an industry revolution

Together with FedEx and Eaton Corporation, we developed the world's first commercially successful hybrid delivery truck. Today more than 100 vehicle fleets are using hybrid trucks.