City of Santa Cruz Recognized For Addressing Climate Change

SANTA CRUZ, CA — For its action to address climate change, promote energy innovation and create more sustainable communities, the City of Santa Cruz has been selected as one of the Institute for Local Government’s 2019 Beacon Award Winners. The Beacon Program encourages, supports and recognizes voluntary action by local governments throughout California to address environmental issues.

The City will be receiving a Silver Level Beacon Award for the following achievements completed over the past decade:

• Platinum Level Award for 23 percent Community Greenhouse Gas Reductions
• Gold Level Award for 15 percent Agency Greenhouse Gas Reductions
• Gold level Award for 18 percent Agency Energy Savings
• Silver Level Award for 7 percent Agency Natural Gas Savings
• Platinum Level Award in Sustainability Best Practices

Since 2008, the city has implemented dozens of energy efficiency projects, including efficiency upgrades to lighting, heating and cooling systems, appliances, and motorized equipment as well as installed over 1 megawatt of solar photovoltaic systems

The city will be receiving the award on October 17, 2019 at a special awards reception being co-hosted by the League if California Cities and the Statewide Energy Efficiency Collaborative during the League of California Cities’ Annual Conference in Long Beach.

“We are thrilled that the city’s impactful sustainability and energy practices are being recognized but there is much more to do,”said Dr. Tiffany Wise-West, the city’s Sustainability and Climate Action Manager. “As such, the city continues to prioritize efforts to reduce emissions through infrastructure improvements and influence behavior change where we are working to install a range of deep energy efficiency projects, more bike lanes, more solar PV, fleet electric vehicle charging stations as well as implement an idle-free school campus partnership, distribute METRO EcoPasses to downtown employees and launch a transportation demand management platform in the fall .”

For more information about the City’s Climate Action Program, see www.cityofsantacruz.com/climateactionplan.