A partnership between the American College & Universities Presidents Climate Commitment and the Clinton Foundation was announced yesterday at the US Green Building Councils conference, GreenBuild. In his keynote address (archived on the Greenbuild365.org site) President Clinton discussed a variety of initiatives his foundation is taking to support a greener world.

The announcement is already generating a lot of talk in the blogosphere from our friends at Best Green Blog, Grist, SCUP, and ecoAmerica. Here is a quote from the ACUPCC press release: "The partnership gives signatories of the ACUPCC access to funding mechanisms, technical assistance, and discounts on state of the art products from companies who have signed Memoranda of Understanding with the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI). The CCI has securedcommitments from 5 global financial institutions to each offer $1 billion of financing for energy efficiency retrofit projects, from eight leading energy services companies to perform the building retrofits and guarantee the energy savings, and more than twenty five manufacturers of energy efficient products who will offer discounts of up to 70 percent to project partners."

Inefficient buildings account for a large percentage of campuses total GHG emissions. This new partnership will serve as a great mechanism for campuses that may not currently have the capital or operating budgets to initiate needed upgrades. Eleven ACUPCC signatories also announced the launch of pilot projects with the CCI that will serve as models for other colleges and universities. These eleven schools (Allegheny College, Arizona State University, College of the Atlantic, Dakota County Technical College, Lee College, the Los Angeles Community College District, Middlebury College, Saint Lawrence University, Syracuse University, the University of Colorado Boulder, and the University of Illinois at Chicago) mirror the diversity of the 427 schools in 47 states whose leaders have signed the ACUPCC.

Below is a list of Clinton Climate Initiative Energy Efficiency Building Retrofit partners as of 11/7/07:

Energy Services Partners

• Siemens
• Johnson Controls
• Honeywell
• Trane
• Noresco
• Ameresco
• Schneider Electric / TAC
• Chevron Energy Services

Financial Partners

• Citigroup
• Deutsche Bank
• UBS
• ABN Amro
• JPMorgan
• Chase

More details to come including video clips of President Clinton announcing the partnership! Stay tuned...