CITY OF CARSON AWARDED GOLD-LEVEL ENERGY ACHIEVEMENT BY SOUTH BAY CITIES COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS AND

Carson, CA – December 6, 2023 – City of Carson was honored with a Gold-Level Energy Achievement Award at the First-Annual Culmination Event for South Bay Energy and Climate Recognition Program.  In partnership with the Southern California Regional Energy Network (SoCal REN), the City of Carson is recognized for its efforts in pursuing energy efficient initiatives over the past year.

To earn this distinction, the City of Carson purchased clean energy technology, advocating for climate action through community presentations, organizing events, conducting greenhouse gas emission inventories, and exploring the replacement of traditional gas water heaters at city facilities with more energy-efficient heat pump water heaters.  The city also achieved 5% energy savings (combined kilowatt-hour and therms) this year.

“Through the SBCCOG’s South Bay Environmental Services Center program, it has been our 20-year mission to implement programs to help our cities save energy and water and reduce waste in our communities,” said Cedric L. Hicks, Sr., Carson Councilmember and Chair of the SBCCOG. “As we continue our work this year to help cities update their greenhouse gas emission (GHG) inventories and ultimately their climate action plans, we decided to create some friendly competition to engage our cities in the process. We’re elated to see they met the challenge.”

“It is exciting to have our efforts recognized at the Gold-Level by the South Bay Cities Council of Governments and Southern California Regional Energy Network. I am pleased that my colleagues and I along with our staff are using our energy to implement programs that create change for today and future generations. ” said Carson Mayor Lula Davis-Holmes.

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 (SCE) and/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 earned 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.