Program seeks to curb residents' carbon footprint

To try to curb carbon emissions in Santa Cruz by 40% from 1990 levels by 2030 and reach the city's aspirational target of carbon neutrality by 2035, the city has launched its Resilient Santa Cruz platform.

The online dashboard is designed to help residents track the actions they take that contribute to their carbon emissions and give helpful tips on how to reduce their footprint.

“Folks need the ability to understand what their carbon footprint is, where their major areas for high impact are and they need links to easy-to-understand information — rebates and credits that are available — and all in a onestop shop,” said Tiffany Wise-West, sustainability and climate action manager. “That's what Resilient Santa Cruz really is.”

The online platform is tied to the city's 2030 Climate Action Plan, which was adopted in September. Through the platform, users commit to emissions reduction actions and then receive feedback about the actions, such as turning the heat down or using LEDs.

To make the program a reality, WiseWest teamed up with Ecology Action, Central Coast Community Energy and other regional organizations to create Resilient Santa Cruz, Resilient Santa Cruz County and Resilient Central Coast.

“This really is a six-county activation platform,” Wise-West said. “We're achieving some efficiencies in scale here because this is not something that the city could launch on its own due to the cost of maintaining such a platform and also the high degree of communication that's needed with our community to really optimize the use of the platform.”

The city hopes that 1,000 households register with the platform by April 23, which is Earth Day. As an incentive, 100 prizes are being given away to those who register, including gift cards, food waste pails, bicycle equipment and the grand prizes of a youth and adult bike. To qualify to win one of the prizes, residents need to register and create a profile on the platform.

“Since we launched … we have about 94 households registered,” Wise-West said. “So we're at 10% of our target already.”

After experimenting with various forms of outreach in the past, such as fact sheets, webinars and community meetings, Wise-West said she feels that the online platform will be a more effective way to connect with the community about these issues.

“This gives us a better mechanism to reach folks,” she said. “We recognize that people have their own schedules and they prioritize their time to go get groceries or work a second job. This enables people to utilize the platform on their own time, which is really critical in this day and age.”

Another strategy the platform uses to better engage residents about carbon emissions and actions they can take to curb them, is to promote the creation of teams and challenges, which is already being implemented within the departments of city government.

To register, go to resilientsantacruzcounty.org/santacruz.