The meeting, held on September 16, 2021, centered on a proposed program to provide energy efficiency retrofit resources for small businesses, with a possible focus on underrepresented businesses. A speaker detailed how the program would fill a gap in available energy reduction assistance.
the resources available for specifically small businesses uh to conduct energy efficiency retrofit so we want to fill that gap here um who is this program serving it's serving small businesses and we could focus on underrepresented businesses here um and by focus I mean we could provide additional services to those small businesses as well as all small businesses regardless of their underrepresented status and I will pause and see if there's any questions on this program. Thanks Julie this is one of my favorites because three of our cities have or had a uh sustainable small sustainable business certification program that's aligned with the California Green Business Network. So Huntington Beach, Irvine and Fullerton have these programs and they have been very successful in helping businesses reduce operational costs. It looks at water conservation, energy efficiency, waste reduction and pollution prevention. One thing that we have had discussions with the executive director of the California Green Business Network and I will also note that each city that participates receives money from the California Air Resources Board through CAGBN or California Green Business Network to fund these programs in each city and to provide small mini grants to businesses that partake that maybe want to swap out something. So in our discussions with the executive director of California Green Business Network, you know she pointed out that a lot of times they're able to uh focus on water conservation or waste reduction but there's very few and far between of energy uh reduction resources. And so this would help businesses maybe a small business that is a corner market to reduce to