User:Sustainca/California Sustainability Alliance

California Sustainability Alliance
The California Sustainability Alliance works to bring together key stakeholders needed to overcome the obstacles of sustainability. The Alliance was designed to help meet the State’s aggressive climate, energy and other resource and environmental goals by increasing and accelerating sustainable measures and strategies. The Alliance specifically focuses on energy efficiency, climate action, “smart growth” principles, renewable energy development, water use efficiency, waste management, and transportation management within California.

Tools
The Alliance is continually developing and sharing toolkits, resources and pilot programs that are designed to aid in the planning and implementation of sustainability initiatives within California. These tools are specifically meant to target the alliances focuses (energy efficiency, climate action, smart growth, renewable energy, water efficiency, waste management and transportation management) and include:
 * Green General Plan Toolkit: Recognizes five key sustainability principles that local governments may wish to consider in developing their green general plans: strategic emissions reduction, smart land use & planning, responsible resource use, integrated transportation, and innovative waste management.
 * Local Government Operations Protocol Toolkit: A tool for accounting and reporting Greenhouse gas emissions across a local government’s operations. It was adopted by the California Air Resources Board (ARB) in September 2008 for local governments to develop and report consistent and accurate GHG inventories and to help meet California’s AB 32 GHG reduction obligations.
 * Green Leases Toolkit: This toolkit supports tenants and landlords in developing their own green leasing policies and requirements, measuring and comparing the green attributes of different buildings, developing specific lease language and communicating policies and requirements to the market.
 * Emerald California Pilot Program: Emerald California is designed to help local governments adopt ‘reach goals’ that go beyond simply complying with State environmental mandates and implement sustainability programs that support California’s environmental priorities. The Alliance is the lead implementer of this California Department of Conservation pilot program.

Sustainability Showcase Awards
In the winter of 2008/2009, the California Sustainability Alliance began recognizing organizations through the creation of their Annual Sustainability Showcase Awards. The Alliance awards are given to organizations within California that have successfully implemented sustainable policies, programs, practices and technologies.

The 2008 winners included:
 * Inland Empire Utility Agency, recognized for their innovation in integrated resource management and best-in-class projects ranging from green buildings, energy efficient water operations and renewable energy.
 * Thomas Properties Group, recognized for its leadership in greening California's real estate which included their partnership with the State and Consumer Services Agency to make the California Environmental Protection Agency headquarters building one of the greenest in the country.
 * University of California, recognized for its excellent environmental leadership and customer-initiated partnership through which students, employees and administrators are successfully collaborating to address climate change, sustainable transportation, green buildings, and waste reduction through all ten campuses.

The 2009 winners included:
 * Jones Lang LaSalle, recognized for their efforts to minimize buildings' environmental impacts by creating real value energy and sustainability for their clients and within their own operations.
 * Los Angeles Housing Partnership, recognized as a leader within the affordable housing industry due to its early adoption of sustainable practices, energy efficiency, renewable resources, water efficiency, smart growth and more.
 * Town of Los Gatos, recognized for their employee and community commitment to promote and implement sustainability programs and practices.
 * City of Santa Monica, recognized as an early adopter of sustainable practices throughout all aspects of their local government and awarded the 2009 Grand Prize Winner by the Alliance.
 * County of San Diego, recognized for building strong sustainable communities by working with their internal departments as well as partnering with local utilities and organizations to maximize adoption of sustainability best practices.
 * Sonoma County Water Agency, recognized for their commitment to provide carbon-free water by 2015 and for all of their sustainable programs and best practices that are helping them achieve this goal.
 * Los Angeles Community College District, recognized for working with leading environmental organizations and for developing and innovative sustainability policy that placed them on the forefront of social and environmental responsibility.