The numbers are in and they’re worth celebrating. Recently, Culver City’s Clean Power Alliance hit a 95% participation rate with 19,219 active Culver City customers powered by 100% green energy.
In 2018, California passed a law the allowed cities to choose where to purchase electricity, and Culver City was one of many municipalities that signed on with the Clean Power Alliance. On February 11, 2019, then-Mayor Thomas Small held a press conference with Sierra Club Director Evan Gillespie to celebrate the “green shift.”
Small is is still enthused. “Culver City’s decision to join the Clean Power Alliance was more than a smart policy choice; it was a statement that our future depends on leaders willing to think beyond the next budget cycle, recognizing that environmental stewardship is not a luxury, it’s a responsibility we owe to future generations.”
With our current numbers, over 100 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions were avoided in the last three months alone. That’s the carbon footprint equivalent of planting 793,000 trees.
Over the last eight years, electrical use has expanded, and if you are one of the residents charging an electric car, working from a home office or even running multiple air conditioning units, these are likely things you were not doing a decade ago.
Former Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells, who is now with the national Sierra Club, noted “Joining the CPA back in 2019 has dramatically lowered the city’s carbon footprint. We switched to renewables to provide choice to community residents and businesses. This move continues to serve the city, and I’m proud to have been part of making this change possible.”
In eight years, the amount of greenhouse waste saved by the city adds up to more than 9,300,000,000 (almost a billion!) pounds of greenhouse waste.
Judith Martin-Straw
