City Profiles / Medium Cities / Berkeley, CA

Berkeley, California

Berkeley, just across the Bay from San Francisco, has always been a city of green firsts, and now it is one of the only U.S. cities to document a measurable decline in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions since 2002. A study conducted as a part of Berkeley's application to join the Chicago Climate Exchange found that the city had a 14 percent decrease in its emissions in 2005 from 2002 levels—more than double the reductions called for in the Kyoto Protocol. The assessment examined nearly all city operations, and the reduction was the equivalent of planting 52,000 trees or removing 450 cars from the road. Measure G, a city effort for citizens to help reduce the city's GHG emissions by 80 percent by 2050, was approved by 81 percent of voters in November 2006.

Yet Berkeley's long history of innovation—initiated both by City Hall and by residents—extends far beyond GHG reductions. It was one of the first cities to offer curbside recycling, and it was the first to convert its entire fleet—from garbage trucks to street sweepers—to biodiesel fuel. Likewise, the city was the first to fully ban polystyrene foam (1990), as well as the first to grant equal benefits for domestic partners (1984) and to integrate schools voluntarily (1968).

Now Berkeley is aggressively seeking to bring green business to the community. Working with the University of California, Berkeley, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories and neighboring mayors, Mayor Tom Bates was a founding member of the East Bay Green Corridor Partnership and created Sustainable Berkeley with over 100 representatives from business, community, city and university arenas. Mayor Bates also created Berkeley FIRST—the first program of its kind in the world—to allow residents to pay for solar installations as a voluntary long-term assessment on their property tax bill. The 40 spots in the first launch of the program were snapped up within nine minutes of the online application's opening.