Corporate Circle
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Through the Corporate Circle, the Earth Institute seeks to engage corporations dedicated to sustainable development in ongoing, mutually beneficial relationships that further shared objectives. These partnerships provide corporations with access to the latest information, tools and networks in the field. We promote opportunities to join the Earth Institute in building strong links between corporate sustainability and holistic sustainable development worldwide through two membership options with the following benefits:
Sustaining Membership
- Special invitations to high-level events, top Earth Institute faculty and students for the latest research and analysis on sustainability
- Opportunities to inform and gain insight from policy discussions through the United Nations and other networks
- Speaking engagements for corporate executives at Earth Institute events and in Columbia classrooms
- Four joint phone conferences per year with Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs to exchange ideas on critical issues of sustainable development
Strategic Partnership
- Includes all benefits of the Sustaining Membership
- Opportunities to be involved with the creation of customized sponsored projects for applied research, outreach and communication and corporate training programs
- Opportunity for Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs’ participation in speaking engagements and exchange
If you are interested in learning more about corporate partnership opportunities, contact Jennifer Swift-Morgan, corporate and foundation relations officer, by phone at 212-854-5123 or by email at jswiftmorgan@ei.columbia.edu.
Earth Institute Corporate Circle Members
Becton Dickinson: HIV/AIDS Prevention and Treatment
Becton Dickinson, a global medical technology company, supports the Earth Institute’s work related to HIV/AIDS in developing countries. BD’s commitment includes funding for the project’s global HIV/AIDS coordinator and other in-country health coordinators, as well as collaboration on diagnostic and clinical infrastructure and core competency needs. BD has also helped to identify top staff in Africa for the Millennium Cities Initiative, including our public health specialist in East Africa, whose previous experience at BD has helped her become a powerhouse in urban public health development in Kenya.
Deutsche Bank: Climate Change Science and Policy
In addition to their participation in the Global Roundtable on Climate Change, Deutsche Bank Asset Management has initiated a collaboration with the Columbia Climate Center at the Earth Institute to support applied research that enhances our understanding of climate change science and policy. For a current project, DB is sponsoring researchers at the Columbia Climate Center to develop a model to quantify the impact of government regulations and targets on emissions and concentrations of carbon dioxide over time.
Ericsson: Mobile Technology for Health, Business and Climate
Through its unique private partnership with the Earth Institute, Ericsson continues to advance its vision of "communication for all" through innovation, technology and sustainable business solutions. Ericcson has committed to bring voice and Internet connectivity to over half a million people in the Millennium Villages, working with pan-African operators MTN and Zain to improve existing coverage or to build new networks.
In all of the Millennium Villages, Ericsson is also supplying mobile phones to health workers and providing support for mobile applications that enhance the Earth Institute’s work in health, education, agriculture and small business development. Most recently, Ericsson has facilitated the addition of weather monitoring devices on their cellular communication towers, providing a whole new source of data to enhance the Earth Institute’s climate science and adaptation efforts. In 2009, Carl-Henric Svanberg, the president and CEO of Ericsson, joined the External Advisory Board of the Earth Institute and plays a critical role in helping the Earth Institute mobilize the latest technologies for sustainable development.
GE: Research and Planning for a Sustainable China
GE, one of the world’s most innovative companies, has long been committed to harnessing imagination to solve some of the most challenging problems facing the planet. Through its contribution to the China 2049 initiative, GE is supporting the unique collaboration of China’s top economic and planning agency – the National Development and Reform Commission – the Brookings Institution and the Earth Institute to develop research to help formulate policies to ensure that China’s long-term growth and development are economically efficient and environmentally sustainable. GE is also a partner of the Millennium Villages project through their support of essential health infrastructure as part of an integrated approach to public health provision.
GlaxoSmithKline: Public Health in Africa
GlaxoSmithKline, a pharmaceutical company whose mission is to improve the quality of human life, is supporting the work of the Millennium Villages project through two grants. The first, which went to the Earth Institute’s Center for National Health Development in Ethiopia, supports critical applied research into the control of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), helping the Earth Institute to pilot the integration of NTD control and reduction into existing malaria control or other relevant national programs in ten African countries. The second grant is supporting work to improve hygiene in Mali, Senegal and across the Millennium Villages through integrated education and infrastructure development initiatives.
HSBC: Climate Change Adaptation in New York City
HSBC partnered with the Earth Institute to address climate change in the New York region by linking community groups, municipal agencies and environmental organizations with researchers and students. The commitment includes funding for internships, research assistantships and conferences, all of which focus on climate change adaptation projects. The projects are specific to the needs of the New York region, build upon expertise of the community organizations and include expansion of green roofs, increased permeable surfaces, coastal wetland restoration, strategies to deal with sea level rise and storm surges, climate change and environmental justice, water and energy conservation, economic impacts on local businesses, and public health impacts.
JM Eagle: Expanding Safer Water Networks
JM Eagle, the world’s largest PVC pipe manufacturer, and the Earth Institute have partnered to bring safer water to six African countries. Already, the work has resulted in a new water infrastructure system serving 13,500 people in western Senegal on a network of almost 70 miles of pipes that connect 63 villages. The public-private partnership includes close collaboration with all relevant governmental ministries in each of the target countries and addresses an immediate need for accessible water. It also provides a sustainable long-term infrastructure and positively impacts health, gender issues and poverty reduction.
KPMG: Putting Their Expertise to Work for Sustainable Urban Development
As part of their Global Corporate Citizenship Program, KPMG supports the efforts of the Millennium Cities Initiative in Africa by leveraging the skills and expertise of its employees. The firm has seconded a full-time investment analysis specialist to the project who has been instrumental in helping to develop commercial due diligence analyses for the Millennium Cities and identifying viable sectors ripe for sustainable investment. In addition, KPMG has given critical support to the development of investor guides to promote sustainable foreign direct investment in Kisumu, Kenya; Kumasi, Ghana; and Akure, Nigeria. They are also looking to expand their engagement by sponsoring a Millennium Village and by creating a sustainable development corporate training program with the Earth Institute.
Merck: Public Health in Africa
Merck & Co., Inc. is a global leader in fighting disease and addressing unmet medical needs worldwide. Together with the Earth Institute, Merck is supporting the achievement of health-related Millennium Development Goals in rural Africa by funding the development of a sustainable rural healthcare system founded on a professional cadre of community health workers (CHWs). Well-trained, remunerated and supervised CHWs can deliver critical preventive and curative services at the household level and thus address Africa’s human resources and infrastructure deficiencies in the health sector. With Merck’s commitment, CHW education curriculum development, training and supervision capacity strengthening can now be expanded across all fourteen Millennium Villages, serving as a demonstration to spur a scale-up of the CHW system to the national level across Africa.
Monsanto: Agribusiness Research and Policy
The Monsanto Company is providing crucial scientific and economic development assistance to the African Green Revolution through multi-year support to expand and sustain the capacity of the Earth Institute’s Tropical Agriculture Program and agribusiness development initiatives. One of the earliest contributions of Monsanto’s commitment was the hiring of a top rural business development specialist who has helped to advance the development of high-value crops and viable agricultural input and output markets. Earth Institute TropAg specialists have also expanded their research and Green Revolution policy work across Africa thanks to the collaboration, promoting agribusiness and agrifinance opportunities in the Millennium Villages sites to demonstrate how rural populations can move toward self-sustaining financial models that include credit schemes.
Novartis: Developing Electronic Medical Records in the Millennium Villages
Novartis, a pharmaceutical company committed to creating innovative products to prevent and cure diseases, is applying their belief in smart innovation by supporting the development of an electronic medical records system in each of the 14 Millennium Villages sites across Africa. This system is a key communications tool for individuals and communities in remote areas – empowering community health workers with critical information and enabling them to share best-practices with other health care providers in villages thousands of miles away. With Novartis’ support, this is just one initiative Earth Institute researchers are pursing to help achieve health-related Millennium Development Goals through adapted technologies. In addition, Novartis is a partner to the Millennium Villages project through its contributions of the anti-malarial drug Coartem®, which is helping to save lives and improve the health and productivity of people across the MV sites.
PepsiCo, Inc.: Carbon Footprinting
As part of Pepsi’s corporate-wide strategy for sustainability, PepsiCo, Inc. is working with the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy at the Earth Institute to identify means to reduce its carbon footprint and improve the sustainable design of its operations. Pepsi is committed to designing an internal carbon calculator that is usable, robust and customizable and that can improve the measurement of greenhouse gases. The results of the work will help identify high emissions phases of Pepsi’s operations and guide decisions regarding whether to reduce impacts in the supply chain through improved technology or alternative inputs.
PepsiCo Foundation: Water for Improved Livelihoods
Pepsi is also partnering with the Water Center of the Earth Institute to find lasting solutions to the water scarcity crises in Brazil, China, India and sub-Saharan Africa. To reach the project’s goal, the Water Center team of top experts in the fields of hydrology, mechanical engineering, public policy and water politics is working closely with networks of governmental, academic, NGO and private sector actors in each of these countries. To achieve increased water security, the initiative takes a systemic approach that includes infrastructure assessment and enhancement, financial system policy interventions, improvements in the efficiency and allocation of water to users through private-public partnerships, and the assessment of improved agricultural techniques to yield “more crop per drop.” This large, multi-year project is designed to scale up beyond the grant’s end through the national and regional policy initiatives the project is informing and the networks established with local and national actors.
Pfizer Incorporated: Millennium Village Community Health Workers
With support from Pfizer Incorporated, the world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical company, health coordinators from 10 African countries and 14 Millennium Village sites have been able to come together in workshops to discuss key challenges and progress in the Millennium Villages and strategize for improvements and scale-up moving forward. Through the community health workers program that these coordinators are helping to initiate across Africa, primary health care is localized where rural populations can access it and the information gap between households and regional health centers is decreased through the use of innovative mobile technology. Pfizer is also an ongoing supporter of the Earth Institute through their Global Health Fellowship Program.
Procter & Gamble: Improving Drinking Water Quality in the Millennium Villages
Through the P&G Fund of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, Procter & Gamble is contributing to applied research on drinking water safety improvements through the use of the PŪR® water filtration system, a technology developed in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control that has been shown to significantly improve water quality and thereby reduce diarrhea illness by an average of 50%. Based on its commitment to sustainability and helping to increase access to safe drinking water, P&G is providing PŪR® in Millennium Village research sites and supporting monitoring of the acceptance and impact of the technology and eventual planning for scale-up based on the results.
Swiss Re: Weather Risk Insurance for Vulnerable Populations
In collaboration with the Earth Institute’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Swiss Re has helped to pioneer weather risk transfer contracts protecting famers in Kenya, Mali and Ethiopia against severe drought. As part of this partnership, Swiss Re and the Earth Institute have made several joint presentations on the cutting-edge initiative, including a high-level policy roundtable on the use of index insurance for poverty reduction at the annual meeting of the Global Humanitarian Forum in Geneva. Swiss Re has also been an important participant of the Global Roundtable on Climate Change, hosted by the Earth Institute and chaired by Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute.
