Sept. 28, 2007 Companies, NGOs, and government agencies are pledging billions of dollars toward environmental programs at the third annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York this week.

The first day alone brought in 40 commitments of action, Reuters reports. (Read Reuters' sum-up of the action on days one and two.)

Corporate commitments include the following:

• Proctor & Gamble, working with partner organizations in the Children's Safe Drinking Water program, will provide sachets to purify an estimated two billion liters of water. The $20 million project follows a 2006 commitment by P&G to work with partners to provide safe drinking water and hygiene education to one million children in Africa by 2009.


• Intel is committing $300 million over the next 5 years to expand Intel Teach, an online training program. The program has already trained over 4 million teachers in 40 countries to effectively integrate technology into their classrooms, and the expansion will reach an additional 1.5 million teachers in 15 countries.


• Eight U.S. utilities Con Edison, Duke Energy, Edison International, Great Plains Energy, Pepco Holdings, PNM Resources, Sierra Pacific Resources, and Xcel Energy have pledged to increase their investment in energy efficiency by $500 million, totaling about $1.5 billion annually. American Electric Power says it will invest $120 million over five years in environmentally friendly building technologies and education programs.


• Dow Chemical will provide $30 million dollars of loan guarantees to support the financing of up to 2,000 community water systems, serving 11 million people in India through WaterHealth International. WHI has installed 100 systems and partners with local NGOs to provide water and sanitation education. Dow's commitment will help to extend WHI's reach beyond the current projections of 3,000 systems over the next five years.


• Coca-Cola has committed $13.5 million to a reforestation project along Brazilian waterways. The project aims to restore 3,000 hectares of tropical rainforest while providing local citizens with employment opportunities in environmental services. The project also aims to eliminate 30 million tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide over 30 years' time.