Founders of GIESD at Yale have been initiators and organizer of the Yale-Tsinghua Environment and Sustainable Development Leadership Program (ESDLP). Dr. Yajie Song is also Executive Director of the ESDLP.Apart from this close affiliation with the ESDLP, GIESD at Yale provided scholarship to college students for interpretation in the ESDLP, as well as sponsorship to individual participant at the early stage of the ESDLP. In the meantime, GIESD at Yale has also provided assistance to China Association of Mayors (CAM) for the program logistic arrangement in US.

The Yale-Tsinghua Environment and Sustainable Development Leadership Program (ESDLP) was initiated by co-founders of GIESD at Yale: Professor Yi Qian, Professor Jining Chen and Dr. Yajie Song in Sept 2002.  It was developed from Yale Sustainable Development Leadership Program (SDLP, 1997-2001) that was collaborated between Yale University, Sino-Forest Corporation and Nanjing Forestry University, an initiation by Dr. Yajie Song.

The ESDLP has successfully run its first period from 2003 to 2006 and its second period from 2010 to 2012. The program include lectures and seminars respectively at Tsinghua and Yale campus for 3-5 days, followed by study visit to New Haven surrounding case sites, New York City, Chicago, and Portland arranged by Yale. The ESDLP curriculum covered a wide area of topics such as urban ecosystem, sustainable development, urban transportation, industrial ecosystem, educational ecosystem and urban environmental management etc..

The ESDLP has achieved a wide coverage of cities in China and influences. It has been addressed in Yale President Richard Levin’s speech as worldwide university representative on the Tsinghua University Centenary Celebration in 2011 and welcome speech upon China’s President HU Jintao’s visit to Yale in April 2006.