Beacon Award Winners

The Institute for Local Government (ILG) is excited to recognize the 33 cities this year that earned Beacon Awards and Beacon Spotlight Awards for their innovative practices and measurable achievements to address climate change.

This year’s 11 Beacon Award winners, City of Brisbane, City of Cupertino, City of Santa Barbara, City of El Cerrito, City of Carson, City of Foster City, City of San Rafael, City of Burlingame, City of Santa Cruz, City of San Carlos, and Town of Truckee cut nearly 12.5 kilowatt hours of electricity and almost 900,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. Another 22 cities were recognized with Beacon Spotlight Awards for individual achievements around greenhouse gas reductions, energy savings and implementation of sustainability best practices. The communities honored at the Beacon Awards Ceremony are champions of climate action.  

ILG’s Beacon Program was founded to recognize local efforts in energy efficiency and sustainability. Over ten years later, California cities are not only implementing these trusted best practices, but continue to find, test and document promising, emerging and new policies and programs. This year’s Award Ceremony “Energy to Innovation” celebrated just that – the sustained forward-thinking, innovation and collaborative efforts of California’s cities to address climate change. From small projects to large-scale programs, local governments are making great strides to create healthy, sustainable and economically prosperous communities. 

Partnerships are a key component of this success. To honor that, this year, ILG also recognized two organizations that partner with local governments to help them achieve these impressive accomplishments – The Energy Coalition and ICLEI – Sustainability for Local Governments. To find out more about The Energy Coalition visit: https://energycoalition.org/ and to find out more about ICLEI visit www.iclei.org/. 

Currently, 153 cities and counties throughout the state participate in the Beacon Program. ILG established the Beacon Program to create a framework to assist local governments in setting goals, documenting progress and sharing best practices that create healthier, more efficient, vibrant communities. To win a full Beacon Award, participants are required to demonstrate achievement in five areas: Agency Greenhouse Gas Reductions, Community Greenhouse Gas Reductions, Agency Energy Savings, Natural Gas Savings and Sustainability Best Practices. For more information on ILG’s Beacon Program and how to get involved, please visit www.ca-ilg.org/BeaconProgram. And, for a complete list award winners, please visit www.ca-ilg.org/award-winners.