MBA Students Uncover US$350m in Energy Savings

MBA students taking part in a placement program in the US have uncovered US$350 million in potential energy savings for 47 of the Fortune 1000 companies.

The Environmental Defence Fund (EDF) Climate Corps placed 51 MBA students from many of the top US business schools in companies such as Bloomberg, Ebay, McDonald’s, Pepsi, Target, News Corp and Xerox, with the aim of finding environmentally sustainable, cost-saving methods of carrying out their existing business.

Now in its third year, the EDF Climate Corps’ participating MBA students have helped corporations from various sectors to cut a total of 958 million kilowatt hours of energy use per year, enough to power 85,000 US homes.

In its second year participating in the program, online media company Yahoo! has once again found the program beneficial. "The tremendous value of the EDF Climate Corps program is clear to us," explains Christina Page, director of climate and energy strategy at the firm. "We are saving tens of millions of kilowatt hours per year of energy from previous projects identified by our first Climate Corps fellow, so we jumped at the chance to sign up again. Our 2010 fellow uncovered even more opportunities for saving energy in our data centres and building systems."

Joining the Climate Corps program from business schools such as the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, and UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, MBA students are encouraged to use the skills they have been taught on their courses to unearth everyday energy savings through commercial premises lighting, computer equipment, and heating and cooling systems. According to the EDF, energy use from commercial buildings currently accounts for around 18% of all US greenhouse gas emissions.

High expectations

New to the program this year, Cummins, a manufacturer of commercial engines and power generation systems, sponsored two MBA fellows who were tasked with finding savings through energy efficiency and new building standards.

“We had high expectations for our EDF Climate Corps fellows as MBA students with special skills in energy and lifecycle analysis,” Mike Molnar, director of environmental policy and sustainable development at Cummins explains. “This unique external viewpoint proved hugely beneficial in our development of new sustainable building standards, enabling tremendous progress in a few short months."

Each year, the EDF Climate Corps scheme matches current MBA students with US businesses looking to reduce their carbon footprint, and save resources. MBA students are paid a salary by the companies of US$1,250 per week plus travel expenses, and also gain valuable experience in putting the skills they have been taught into action, hopefully proving their ability to cut costs as well as cut energy emissions.