Good afternoon Friends and Colleagues!
As you can guess, my topic today is the Green Business Program, Green Lodging Program, and REACON.
I am very familiar with the Green Business Program. Many years ago I worked with a non-profit called Thimmakka located in Oakland, CA. Thimmakka,
http://www.thimmakka.org/, certifies minority owned businesses as Green through the Bay Area Green Business Program. Since then, many green/sustainable business certifications have emerged or copied the Green Business Program.
So, what is the Green Business Program? Where are these Programs located? How do I become certified?
The Green Business Program is a set of guidelines/ procedures that any business owner can implement in order to become Green/Sustainable and receive a certification for their accomplishment.
Generally, the Green Business Program requires any business to:
- track water and energy usage, solid and hazardous waste generation
- adopt a written environmentally preferable or green purchasing policy
- establish a green team that can help guide efforts to green your business
- provide on-going incentives or training opportunities to encourage management and employee participation
- inform customers about efforts to meet Green Business Standards
- assist at least one other business in learning about the Green Business Program and encourage them to enroll
http://www.greenbiz.ca.gov/BGStandards.html
If you click on the above link, you will see that there are four areas in which the Green Business Program ask you to focus your efforts. They are in: Water Conservation, Solid Waste Reduction & Recycling, Energy Conservation, and Pollution Prevention.
The Green Business Program is located in the following Counties:
Alameda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Marin, Monterey, Napa, San Benito, San Diego, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma, and Ventura
In order to become certified, you would need to contact your local Green Business Program coordinator. The coordinators are typically non-profits or within a branch of a local government office. They will help guide you in reaching all of the goals/tasks you must reach to become certified. Guidance includes taking advantage of rebates, free utility programs, sourcing of vendors and products, and contractor recommendation.
As mentioned earlier, the Green Business Program inspired a few other agencies to create similar programs. Those being the Green Lodging Program (
http://www.documents.dgs.ca.gov/ofa/Travel/greenhotel.pdf) and REACON (
http://www.greenteamsanjoaquin.com/recycling-energy-air-conservation.htm).
REACON is the closest program to the Central Valley and primarily focuses on businesses located in the Stockton and San Joaquin county. If you compare the guidelines of REACON and the Green Business Program, you'll see there are subtle differences between the two.
The Green Lodging Program is focused on greening hotels and has specific guidelines for that industry.You will notice that many of the standards of the program are similar to the Green Business Program and REACON, but has a few more guidelines required for hotels.
In my opinion, all of the guidelines and programs are very attainable.These requirements don't ask you to install solar or replace air conditioning equipment, which are big ticket investments. That is not the point of these guidelines. Instead, they focus on things that anyone can do both in your home and in your business. To me, they are affordable and common sense measures that will create long-term payback. Printing on both sides of a piece of paper is just one of the no cost measures that will help you achieve certification.
There are many more programs/certifications in California. They can range from new construction guidelines to restaurant guidelines. I will be talking about some of these down the road. However, the Green Business Program, Green Lodging Program, and REACON have been talked about in the Central Valley and the Economic Development Corporation's Clean Energy Cluster.
I hope this information is helpful.
DB
