Climate Corps China Program
EDF's Work in China
EDF has worked in China for over 30 years to help curb greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality. In collaboration with the Chinese government, industries, academic institutes, and individuals, our work focuses on three major initiatives: establishing an effective national carbon market, accelerating cleaner energy alternatives to coal and slowing the growth of energy demand by greening the supply chain and promoting demand-side management.
What is Climate Corps?
Climate Corps is an innovative fellowship program that trains talented and passionate graduate students and pairs them with companies and public institutions determined to meet their climate and energy goals. Climate Corps fellows spend a summer designing tools and providing recommendations to accomplish emission reduction goals by reducing energy consumption, procuring renewable energy, electrifying fleets, and engaging suppliers on emissions reduction strategies. Climate Corps is the go-to resource for meeting sustainability goals while also launching the careers of the climate leaders of tomorrow.
We have trained and placed over 1,500 Climate Corps fellows from top universities with more than 600 organizations across three of the countries that matter most to solving the climate crisis – the U.S., China, and India – where they have recommended strategies to avoid 2.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions and identified energy savings worth more than $1.6 billion.
Expanding Climate Corps to China
Since introducing the Climate Corps program to China in 2014, more than 160 fellows have helped over 40 Chinese companies build capacity and advance high-impact climate and energy projects. From investigating the feasibility of renewable energy for local plants to analyzing sophisticated energy-saving solutions and more, Climate Corps fellows have enabled “host” companies to reduce their climate and environmental impact while cutting costs within their own operations and supply chains.
Program History
EDF piloted the Climate Corps China program in 2014 by recruiting, training and placing six Chinese graduate students to improve energy efficiency within multinational companies in China including Walmart, Apple and McDonald’s. Today, Climate Corps China has placed more than 160 fellows from both U.S. and China-based universities with more than 40 domestic and multinational companies including BYD, Coca-Cola and Meituan, to work on a broad range of climate and energy projects.
Results
China fellows have uncovered tens of millions of dollars in energy cost savings and over half a million metric tons of annual CO2 reductions.
