The City of Riverside has partnered with the California Green Business Network. Working with small businesses across counties and cities in California, the Green Business Network seeks to help businesses work towards a more climate friendly environment. By providing individualized attention to small businesses to help them conserve energy and water at no personal cost, they help communities conserve energy and water.
With 54.5% of Riverside County impacted by drought, the Riverside Public Utilities department found that “saving water and using water wisely [is] extremely important.” The Green Business network has saved over 742 million gallons of water across 4,000+ businesses that have partnered with the network. The organization seeks to help small businesses conserve resources and money in a way that is beneficial to both the businesses and their surrounding community. This includes reducing greenhouse gas emissions, eliminating waste, saving water and reducing energy usage.
As a result of the city of Riverside’s partnership with the Green Business Network, businesses can become recognized as a green business if they sign up for the Business Assistance Program. Such businesses have the opportunity to learn how they might operate in more environmentally conscious ways while also cutting costs. After going through the certification process, green businesses can receive public recognition for their efforts as they will receive a certificate and other promotional materials.
This partnership is in line with Riverside’s recent efforts and successes with climate change initiatives. As a result of successful initiatives in 2001 that reduced energy usage for traffic lights, utilized more solar panels and gave away trees, the city began the Clean and Green Task Force and later the Green Accountability Performance (GAP) Committee.
The Clean and Green Task Force created the Sustainability Policy Statement (SPS), a document that focused on eight general areas of interest: “Save Water, Keep it Clean, Make it Solar, Make it Shady, Clean the Air, Save Fuel, Make it Smart and Build Green.”
After being adopted by Riverside’s city council, the SPS allowed the task force to create the Green Action Plan. This plan sought to give recommendations on improving outcomes in “energy, greenhouse gas emissions, waste, urban design, urban nature, transportation and water.” This caused the creation of the GAP Committee to ensure the Green Action Plan was being followed.
