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Alameda County’s Green Business Program is a member of the
California Green Business Network. Each of the 24 (and growing)
local programs offer a beyond-compliance environmental
certification to mostly small-to-medium sized businesses, many of
which are located in disadvantaged communities. 

Right NOW, California’s 24 local Green Business Programs are out
working with businesses to implement many greenhouse gas measures
that state government wants them to embrace –including waste
reduction, organics diversion, energy efficiency in lighting,
heating, cooling and refrigeration, water conservation and greener
chemistry. 

The California Green Business Programs accomplish multiple AB32
goals with small, but highly leveraged local budgets. Working with
local waste, energy and water utilities, we hand-carry valuable
utility rebates and technical assistance to small businesses that
often these businesses are unaware of prior to starting on GB
certification. So far we’ve only been able to serve 3000 businesses
all the way through to certification, though we've pointed hundreds
more toward these types of valuable resources! We have a vision to
serve 10,000 businesses by 2020, but we’ll need more funding to do
that.

It’s challenging for multi-media programs like ours to gain state
funding from multiple, single-media focused departments. Our
program uses a multi-media approach to improve business
environmental performance. So, we want to see the Investment Plan
administer Cap and Trade funds to local programs through a single
state environmental program with a similar comprehensive view. 

We were inspired to start our Green Business Program back in 196
after seeing that multimedia programs like ours work based on our
experiences in the early 1990s.  With the help of many local
partners and a state grant, Alameda County’s Hazardous Materials
Program succeeded in attracting some of the
most-environmentally-impactful business types – automotive repair,
printers, metal platers and dental offices - to a series of
compliance, resource conservation and pollution prevention
workshops. Many participating businesses signed up for onsite
technical assistance visits from our local, multi-agency team after
the workshops - voluntarily! Many businesses were driven to engage
in this relationship by fear of regulation. However, more than half
wanted to be strategic and get ahead of the regulations. These
businesses were motivated by their own environmental values as well
as concern for their employees and neighbors in the community. From
their perspective, our multi-media approach ADDED VALUE to the
workshops.

When an Association of Bay Area Governments advisory group
recommended establishing a recognition program for businesses that
go beyond existing regulations, and conserve resources and use
cleaner materials, we were ready to jump!  With a similar
consortium of local agency & US EPA resources, we launched our
Green Business Program, certifying our first businesses in 1997.
Other local GBPs launched in the following years. 

The Green Business Program is now statewide with 24 local programs
operating in over 150 cities. When you put together all the
measured environmental outcomes from our 3000, mostly small green
businesses, you get some HUGE environmental outcomes, for example:


•	over 800,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions reduced by
our businesses – this data is based on metrics gathered through the
GBPs and calculated using our statewide database, which was
developed with support from DTSC.  


The Concept Paper for the Draft Second Investment Plan includes
several references to small businesses under the heading of “Rural
Communities and Small Businesses”:

We have some additional insights that might help further refine how
AB32 can be successful with small businesses. We have been working
with small businesses since the ‘90s, and collectively, they have a
big impact in terms of greenhouse gas reductions, as our metrics
demonstrate. The Plan currently describes specific small business
greening efforts such as refrigeration retrofit, solar roofs, or
electric vehicle purchases. The Green Business Program have
observed that, in addition to these measures, MUCH MORE is doable
by small businesses. 

To use our relationship to push a single initiative, when we could
promote several, is a lost opportunity. It is much more cost
effective, and frankly, doable in our experience, to incentivize
small businesses to meet all of the AB32 goals, including water
conservation, energy conservation, waste reduction, green chemistry
and alternative transportation. For example, composting green waste
and food scraps reduces landfill waste, but also cuts greenhouse
gases and provides a valuable soil enrichment resource. Saving
energy with better lighting and refrigeration saves on business
operating cost, and also cuts greenhouse gases and power plant
emissions. Preventing pollution by using greener chemistry
preserves the health of employees, but also of nearby communities
and ecosystems. This multimedia approach increases the value of
engaging with each business, both for the business and for our
program. 


Un-siloed, multi-faceted programs like ours are challenged in
having to seek funding competitively from multiple state agencies,
each serving only one media, and one AB32 goal. To the extent that
the process allows, we ask that the state use a comprehensive view
so that multi-pronged organizations like GBPs in the California
Green Business Network can better help to meet California’s
greenhouse gas emissions goal, enable the full array of social,
environmental and econmic co-benefits that are possible, and make
AB32 a success.