Redwood City is Working Internally to Go Green!

Redwood City’s own municipal operations represent a great opportunity for reducing our community’s carbon footprint. We’re continually working to identify and address the environmental effects of how the City conducts business, and researching the latest technologies and methods for providing City services in an environmentally-friendly manner. Here are some of the specific actions the City has taken over the last few years:

• Retrofitting traffic lights to utilize LED technology for great energy reduction
• Converting incandescent light fixtures in our facilities with low-energy fluorescents
• Replacing boilers, pumps, and other items with more efficient equipment for maximum energy reduction
• Implementing our aggressive water conservation program and our recycled water program, with a goal of saving 900 acre feet of water annually (over 300 million gallons each year!)
• Installation of numerous acres of synthetic turf at school and park sites, for maximum water savings as well as significant reduction in fertilizer run-off.
• Increasing use of Green Seal products and other climate-friendly purchasing processes in all City facilities
• Working with CityTrees to conduct tree-plantings throughout the community
• Replacing the City’s fleet vehicles with hybrid models
• Implementation of a Commute Alternatives Program for City employees
• Using the most efficient fuels available in trucks and machinery
• Gaining Green Business Certification for City Hall (with more buildings to come)
• Incorporating a “green” philosophy in our Planning function for new developments

We’re also embarking on development of a Climate Action Plan, which will look at our baseline greenhouse gas emissions for City operations and determine even more actions we can take to reduce our carbon footprint.

And, City staff is working closely with our Planning Department to incorporate climate action planning into the New General Plan process. This helped to learn first-hand about issues of importance to the community with respect to sustainability, and to identify community issues that align with the elements of a typical climate action plan, many of which will be folded into the New General Plan.