As a local sustainability organization faces drastic funding cuts, it may be forced to downsize its student internship offerings.

The Network for a Sustainable Tomorrow is a nonprofit that conducts outreach and promotes education on sustainability and clean energy. As part of its mission to promote environmental justice, the organization has adopted the Energy Corps internship program for undergraduate and high school students interested in the renewable and clean energy sectors.

However, after its funding is cut off at the end of this year, NeST does not have a concrete backup plan to support many of these internships, leaving students at a loss.

The Energy Corps internship runs three times a year, with programs in the fall, spring and summer. Energy Corps interns assist in facilitating community outreach related to energy efficiency, including solar and geothermal energy, and support community efforts to increase environmental awareness. Groups of three to six eligible undergraduate and high school students are chosen to participate in this paid internship.

Running for over 10 years, the internship has graduated about 120 interns, most of whom have been Binghamton University students. Many of them have gone on to pursue careers in clean energy and related fields, with nearly a third working in the energy not-for-profit and environmental fields.

“About 13 or 14 percent of our alums have gone into the clean energy industry in various different ways, and there’s no question at all that our internship has facilitated many careers,” Adam Flint, BA ‘88, MA ‘98, Ph.D. ‘08, the organization’s director of clean energy programs, said in an interview. “It’s facilitated careers outside of the industry as well — people have gone into nonprofits and so forth.”

To adequately fund these paid internships, NeST has looked to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, an agency that runs the New York State Clean Energy internship program. According to NYSERDA’s website, this program “provides funding to eligible clean energy businesses, organizations, and local municipalities hiring interns to perform meaningful work in the clean energy sector.”

Earlier this year, NYSERDA proposed discontinuing this funding in a May 15 order issued by the state’s Public Service Commission. The order declared that NYSERDA would discontinue its Climate Justice Fellowship after June 30, 2026 and that funding would be cut for the Clean Energy Internship program. NYSERDA is currently seeking other funding sources for the internship.

Flint told Pipe Dream these cuts would affect NeST’s internship offerings, which would negatively impact students. According to Flint, NeST received around 90 resumes from University students alone, before a Watson College career fair boosted applications even further. The program offers a total of only eight positions between their last summer and fall program cycles.

“There’s huge demand for this because we deliver value, and people get paid, people get jobs,” said Flint. “It’s a proven program. If we do not have money, come January, I think we’ll be able to offer our spring internship, but we probably can’t offer our summer internship. And frankly, we’re having other problems attracting money as well.”

Flint noted that despite its involvement with BU, NeST has never received direct funding from the University. He highlighted the benefits that the NeST program has provided for the University and its students, including work on faculty research projects and being a key partner in the Binghamton 2 Degrees project, which works to solve problems that result from living under two degrees of global warming.

“I will say this, that I am a double alumni of this university, and we have benefited 120 of the University’s students, it would be nice to get some support from the University,” Flint said. “Not simply the existing funding that they have for some students to get paid less than we pay them for the summer, but to actually support the organization that is necessary for this internship to exist.”

Editor’s Note (10/10): A previous version of this article said the Climate Justice Fellowship and Clean Energy Internship would end on Dec. 31, 2025. The fellowship will end June 30, 2026, and there is no planned closure of the internship.