Opportunity

California State Capitol Building
California State Capitol Building

A leader in clean energy, resource efficiency and environmental policies, California has established a very high bar for the state. Local governments are pivotal to achieving these ambitious goals.

In its Long Term Energy Efficiency Strategic Plan, the California Public Utilities Commission established the following vision for local governments:

  1. At least 5 percent of California’s local governments (representing at least 5 percent of California’s total population) adopt “reach” codes each year. By 2020, the majority of local governments have adopted incentives or mandates to achieve above-code levels of energy efficiency (or demand side management) in their communities, or have led statewide adoption of these higher codes.
  2. The current rate of non-compliance with California’s codes and standards is halved by 2012, and halved again by 2016. Full compliance is achieved by 2020.
  3. The energy usage footprint of local government buildings is 20 percent below 2003 levels by 2015 and 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
  4. By 2015, 50 percent of local governments have adopted energy efficiency/sustainability/climate change action plans for their communities, and 100 percent have done so by 2020, with implementation and tracking of achievements.
  5. By 2020, 100 percent of local governments have in-house capabilities devoted o achieving all cost-effective energy efficiency in their facilities and stimulating the same throughout their communities.
Source: Section 12, p. 91

The above plan is designed to set California on its path to a long-term sustainable and low carbon future. Local governments are expected to do a lot of heavy lifting over a relatively short period of time in order to achieve this vision.

  • Local Government Toolkits

  • Sustainable Communities

  • Survey Results

  • Local Government Toolkits

    The California Sustainability Alliance has developed several toolkits and other resources that aid local governments in planning and implementing sustainable initiatives. These include:

    • Local Government Green Procurement Guide
    • Green Tenant Guide
    • CALeep
    • Local Government Resources Toolkit
    • Green General Plans
    • Local Government Operations Protocol
    • Local Government Retrocommisioning Toolkit

  • Survey Results

    To better understand and help local governments in California successfully develop and implement effective sustainability plans and policies in their jurisdictions, the Alliance in partnership with Public Technology Institute conducted a survey of California cities to determine needs for sustainability benchmarking tools.

    The survey, conducted in April-May 2009, examined the following:

    • The level of sustainability adoption among California cities;
    • What sustainability benchmarking tools cities are now using;
    • How sustainability tools are working for local city governments; and
    • What additional functionality these tools need to support the development and implementation of sustainability plans and actions.

    76 of 480 cities in California (or 16%) participated in the survey. Key findings from the survey include:

    • 67% of respondents indicated that their communities strongly support sustainability;
    • 55% responded that there is very strong leadership support within their cities for sustainability programs;
    • Water and energy efficiency were included among the top three sustainability priorities by more than 50% of respondents. Water efficiency was selected by 21 cities as their very top sustainability priority. Eleven cities selected energy efficiency as their top priority while 20 cities selected energy efficiency as their second highest priority.
    • Although the limited sample size meant it was difficult to draw broad conclusions from this survey. The diverse responses reinforce the perspective that local governments tend to have unique local priorities and resource challenges. There are several important common themes:
      • California’s local governments face many competing priorities, many of which are mandatory, and do not have enough financial and staff resources to do them all.
      • Confusion is high, with existing and evolving policy goals and regulatory and legislative mandates competing for attention, and lack of clarity as to exactly what actions local governments need to take.
      • Despite these challenges, city leadership and community support for sustainability remain high and there is a lot of current activity in all of the sustainability priorities.
      • On their own initiative, many local governments are proactively partnering with their utilities, state and federal agencies, private organizations, and other cities and counties.
      • Nearly every one of the 76 cities that participated in this survey indicated they had some type of environmental sustainability program ‐ whether it was recycling and/or composting, to fully integrated smart growth and climate action programs.

    To view the full survey results and report, please click here

    Los Angeles City Hall
    Los Angeles City Hall