CARSON — Last month, the South Bay Cities Council of Governments or SBCCOG in partnership with the Southern California Regional Energy Network or SoCalREN, recognized South Bay cities for their efforts in pursuing energy-efficiency initiatives and sustainability-related tasks over the past year as part of the second annual “South Bay Energy and Climate Recognition Program.” While all cities received recognition for their efforts, seven cities took home gold-level awards this year: Carson, El Segundo, Gardena, Hawthorne, Manhattan Beach, Rolling Hills Estates and Torrance.
Highlights of steps taken by gold-level cities to earn this distinction include:
Carson – Installed over 150 electric vehicle charging ports at 13 city sites, joined the Clean Power Alliance, a community choice aggregator that allows local government to procure cleaner power for its community, and replaced gas water heaters with more energy-efficient heat pump water heaters.
The City of Carson earned points toward its gold status by receiving 2024 recognition by the Institute of Local Government’s Beacon Award program, which recognizes cities for their reductions in energy use or greenhouse gas emissions. The City of Carson earned the highest award in the Beacon program, a Platinum Vanguard Beacon Award. The SBCCOG assisted these cities with gathering and documenting data such as greenhouse gas emissions and facilitating meetings with the ILG to achieve these distinctions.
To participate, cities were required to be enrolled in the SoCalREN—a program administered by Los Angeles County to provide energy-saving services to residents, businesses and public agencies served by Southern California Edison or SCE and/or Southern California Gas Company or SoCalGas. Cities’ progress was tracked through a point system. To earn points, cities had to complete at least one activity within the categories of climate action, education, and technical assistance. Cities reached gold-level achievement by earning 12 to 15 points, silver-level by earning eight to 11 points, and bronze-level achievement by earning three to seven points. Point-earning activities included the following:
Participating in a SoCalREN energy program
Purchasing clean power
Updating their city’s GHG inventories
Implementing on-site, renewable energy (solar power, hydropower etc.)
Installing energy-efficient lighting and HVAC replacement in municipal facilities
Complying with Assembly Bill 802, which requires energy benchmarking
and publicly disclosing building energy use
Showing quantified energy savings in municipal facilities
Replacing turf (grass) at municipal facilities with more drought-tolerant
native plants
Hosting beach clean-ups, Earth Day events, gardening events and more
Promoting sustainable practices online
In 2022, the California Air Resources Board released its updated proposal to implement the most ambitious climate action of any jurisdiction in the world, taking unprecedented steps to drastically slash pollution and accelerate the transition to clean energy. The state has set the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2045. The rewards program is designed to help cities do their part to meet this goal one sustainable step at a time.
Details: https://cdn.southbaycities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/07132259/Recognition_Program_Guidelines_02.08.24.pdf
