What’s did California do?!

In the State of California, many regions are taking the initiative and starting to shift towards a more sustainable lifestyle. Claremont has created a Sustainability City Plan, which the “vision is one where all who live and work in Claremont are enabled to live in ways that allow them to meet their needs while preserving the ability of future generations to do the same” (Claremont Sustainable City Plan). In order to track their progress, yearly sustainability report cards report just how well, or how un-well, the city is doing to achieve a sustainable city. The plan is broken up into 7 different segments, with several sub-sections, which correlate with Claremont’s General Plan. In order to fulfill goal area one, and subsection 3 (1.3), Resource Conservation- Solid Waste, a major statewide ban may alleviate the pressure for Claremont to personally force businesses and consumers to alter their current ways.

Claremont Energy Efficiency

In response to global climate change The City of Clermont has created an grass root level community home and energy retrofit program also known has ( CHERP).  CHERP focuses on energy efficiency within homes, acknowledging that residential homes on average waste 50-60 percent of the energy they use. It is also estimated that in the United States 48% of the total energy used derives from building and in Claremont 80% of the total energy consumed comes from residential buildings. With the creation of CHERP Claremont has become the only city in Los Angeles County to reach the 1% goal of retrofitting homes.

Currently the goal of CHERP is to reduce energy consumption by retrofitting 1% of residential homes in Phase 1 of the program, equating to 130 homes. In Phase 2 10% or 1,300 homes.

Retrofitting project can include various aspects of the home, just so long as it reduces the overall consumption of the building.  One of the most common improvements to homes are improvements in insulation.

CHERP provides many resources which can be found on their website http://www.claremontenergy.org/ to help owners gain access to rebates, contractors and financing programs .