The Clean Energy Leadership Institute (CELI) is an environmental nonprofit which focuses on promoting young professionals who believe in creating an economy based around weather-dependent energy and diversity. The group is membership based and connects its network of interns with organizations focusing on environmental causes. ¹

It is partnered with the Elemental Excelerator, which asserts that structural inequity, racism, and an extractive economy are in place in the United States. The organization claims that all those issues are interconnected and must all be addressed while attempting to understand climate change.  They are also connected with FutureMap, an organization which tries to aid first-generation college students in building careers by focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), among other things. ^{2 3}

Empowering Diverse Climate Talent

Empowering Diverse Climate Talent (EDICT) is an internship program for individuals from poor and ethnic-minority backgrounds. The program was created in 2020 by Devin Hampton and Jason Michaels. Hampton was the CEO of UtilityAPI, a software company responsible for a large majority of solar power and storage in the United States. Michaels was the CCO of Leap, a company which creates virtual power plants. These two connected after the death of George Floyd in 2020, when Hampton called for a focus on diversity and inclusion in the environmental technology sector. ^{4 5 6}

EDICT matches employers who take the EDICT pledge with interns from traditionally excluded groups. The pledge calls on companies to “push for inclusion of diverse voices at conferences and industry events, interviewing diverse candidates for every job opening and mentoring them on a path towards success, having uncomfortable conversations needed to support the careers of diverse people within organizations, searching out diverse mid-career and senior hires from other industries, hiring paid interns from diverse backgrounds, and using data and transparency to hold themselves accountable.” ⁷

The goal for the EDICT is to convince policy makers to promote more bills which focus on advancing environmental technology instead of letting the consumers dictate because of a belief that there is a climate crisis. ⁸

Environmental Excelerator

Environmental Excelerator expresses the view that increasing governmental regulation and control in the environmental technology space is the best way to allow mass access to this new technology. ⁹ It also affirms that using policy to force change will create customer support for new environmental technologies. ¹⁰

1. “Edict: Join Us.” Clean Energy Leadership Institute. Accessed February 14, 2024. https://www.cleanenergyleaders.org/edict.
2. “Edict: Join Us.” Clean Energy Leadership Institute. Accessed February 14, 2024. https://www.cleanenergyleaders.org/edict.
3. “Elemental Policy Lab.” Elemental Excelerator, January 19, 2024. https://elementalexcelerator.com/elemental-policy-lab/.
4. “Edict: Join Us.” Clean Energy Leadership Institute. Accessed February 14, 2024. https://www.cleanenergyleaders.org/edict.
5. “About Us.” UtilityAPI. Accessed February 14, 2024. https://utilityapi.com/about.
6. “About Us.” Leap. Accessed February 14, 2024. https://www.leap.energy/about.
7. “Edict: Join Us.” Clean Energy Leadership Institute. Accessed February 14, 2024. https://www.cleanenergyleaders.org/edict.
8. “Elemental Policy Lab.” Elemental Excelerator, January 19, 2024. https://elementalexcelerator.com/elemental-policy-lab/.
9. Team, The Elemental. “What Startups Have Taught Us about Unlocking Climate Policy Innovation.” Elemental Excelerator, June 7, 2023. https://elementalexcelerator.com/latest/articles/unlocking-climate-policy-innovation/.
10. Team, The Elemental. “What Startups Have Taught Us about Unlocking Climate Policy Innovation.” Elemental Excelerator, June 7, 2023. https://elementalexcelerator.com/latest/articles/unlocking-climate-policy-innovation/.