Solar energy firm SunPower Corporation announced this week the launch of the SunPower Foundation, which will aim to empower, inspire and motivate a new generation of solar energy leaders.
"We established the SunPower Foundation to ‘give back’ through education and building stronger communities," said SunPower CEO Tom Werner. "It is our hope that the foundation will encourage more people to consider how the electricity they use is generated, and the global potential of reliable, emission-free solar power to reduce the effects of climate change."
Specifically, the foundation’s goals are to develop and distribute solar power education tools, fund nonprofit organizations that promote the use of solar power, and provide SunPower employees and partners with opportunities to support community-based solar power initiatives.
The foundation’s first initiative focuses on the first of those three goals, through its partnership with the 100 People Foundation to create the 100 People Under the Sun project.
The 100 People Foundation creates media and educational tools that simplify and humanize complicated global statistics by putting everything in terms of 100 people. For example, if the world were represented by 100 people, 76 would have electricity while 24 would not. The foundation also creates films and photographic educational programs to convey the statistics.
Using the 100 People premise, the 100 People Under the Sun project will produce classroom lesson plans to help students understand their use of energy and investigate the local community’s use of solar energy. This curriculum also includes a 12-video series, available through the internet, which have so far been downloaded approximately 11,000 times by the 140 schools participating in 39 countries.
The SunPower Foundation is said to be the first organization of its kind funded by a major solar company.
