Fred Krupp

Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp has guided EDF for four decades, overseeing its growth from a small nonprofit with a budget of $3 million to one of the world’s most influential environmental organizations, with an annual budget of more than $300 million and 1,000 employees. EDF works across the globe, including in the United States, China, India and Europe.

Krupp has pioneered innovative approaches to harnessing the power of the marketplace to protect our environment, including groundbreaking policies that have reduced U.S. sulfur dioxide pollution, which causes acid rain, by 90%.

In 2023, Krupp worked through the global climate talks, COP28, to help secure commitments from 50 oil and gas companies, representing 40% of global oil sales, to reduce their methane pollution by 90% by 2030.

As a leading voice on climate change, energy and corporate sustainability, Krupp appeared on the TED stage in 2018 to announce plans to launch MethaneSAT, a satellite that today measures and maps planet-warming methane pollution from the oil and gas industry worldwide. Now orbiting the Earth, this satellite is opening a new era of climate action — and accountability for corporate and national commitments. He was also a key advocate for the bipartisan overhaul of America’s chemical safety laws in 2016 and the passage of historic climate investments in 2022.

Krupp has led EDF’s groundbreaking corporate partnerships with FedEx, KKR, McDonald’s and others. He helped GM develop its plan to sell only zero-emission vehicles by 2035. Most recently, Walmart announced it achieved the goal it set in partnership with EDF to cut a billion metric tons of climate pollution, equivalent to Japan’s annual climate emissions.

Krupp also has been a special adviser to top government leaders and served on three presidential commissions. In 2011, the Secretary of Energy appointed Krupp to the seven-member panel charged with recommending measures to reduce the environmental impact and improve the safety of shale gas production.