TURNING THE GREEN DREAM INTO REAL DEALS ON CALIFORNIA'S CENTRAL COAST

Turning the Green Dream into Real Deals; Introducing the Green Coast Innovation Zone
Herman K. Trabish, January 17, 2010 (NewEnergyNews)

It is a business truism: Winners see opportunity in adversity. An enormous economic opportunity in New Energy emerged across this country in the last two years, even as the economy itself withered and contracted. It was a green dream of a New Energy economy spawning freedom from fossil fuel spew and radioactive waste and generating a cleaner, healthier and more human-sized lifestyle.

With the slow economic recovery, however, some are beginning to think the opportunity will slip away if they do not get aggressive about turning the dream into real businessess, manufactories and installations generating real revenues, jobs and energy.

Nobody has envisioned New Energy’s potential more vividly than a small group of ambitious folks in the often-overlooked San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura tri-county region of California’s central coast just north of the Los Angeles area. Community leaders there, having had a taste of regional development in the IT boom of the late 1990s, now intend to turn the dream into real energy deals and real sustainable growth and to turn the tri-county region into a “Green Coast” booming with New Energy opportunity.

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They have embarked on a pioneering effort to define exactly how a region can join together to create a New Energy boom. In doing so, they may be creating a template for regional New Energy economy coalitions throughout the nation.

The instigator was Henry Dubroff, Editor of the Pacific Coast Business Times. As he traveled the beat in 2008-09, he talked up the idea of a Green Coast to Bill Buratto, President of the Ventura County Economic Development Association, Dave Davis, Director of the Santa Barbara Community Environmental Council, and Mike Manchak, President of the Economic Vitality Corporation. The concept of the Green Coast Innovation Zone (GCIZ) came out of those conversations.

The region is ripe for installations like local grower Lemoneira's 1 megawatt solar orchard. (click to enlarge)

In a June 2009 meeting of about 30 tri-county leaders, the decision was made to draft a formal white paper and to go forward. Green Coast Innovation Zone: A Tri-County Collaboration, the original definition of what they envisioned, was published in late summer/early fall of 2009.

A few weeks later, at a clean energy day gathering in the Washington, D.C., offices of Representative Lois Capps (D-CA), a similar group of tri-county leaders won the backing of their member in the U.S. House of Representatives. That was when they set the January 14 organizational meeting and earnestly began inventing their way toward a local New Energy economy and a New Energy future.

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The white paper put the dream into concrete terms, the “…transformation to a more sustainable economy and environment through targeted economic and workforce development opportunities…” as well as “a regional strategy to leverage public and private assets and natural resources to stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship through research, business incubation, focused workforce development, targeted economic development and policy development…” and a “focus on the emerging green economy including, renewable energy, and other technologies that promote sustainability as well as public engagement…”

California’s aggressive state policies requiring emissions-reductions and New Energy development surely will buoy the achievement of these ambitions. But many of the leaders who worked out the GCIZ concept have long been advocates of such policies and were associated with A New Energy Direction; A Blueprint for Santa Barbara County, the 2007 Santa Barbara CEC initiative that set a goal of making the county “fossil fuel free by 2033” and defined the resources the county had and the work it would need to do to meet that goal.

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In writing the white paper, it was easier to define the New Energy, Energy Efficiency and Sustainability technologies these determined leaders wanted to see the tri-county region develop than to keep the list succinct. The tri-county region is a diverse one, with big productivity in economic sectors ranging from agriculture to information technology. It will be the GCIZ's burden and opportunity to include them all.

Not every region seeking to duplicate the GCIZ will have the same spectrum of talent, infrastructure and raw materials, but for any region seeking to create a similar initiative, the project begins with an accurate assessment of local resources.

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A next step in the process required articulating the rudiments of the vision. As defined at the January 14 meeting, they are the advancement of local efforts in (1) innovation and entrepreneurship, (2) workforce development and financing, (3) public outreach and education, and (4) public policy. This would all be in service to a regional transition to a New Energy economy.

The white paper ended with a set of core objectives: (1) to improve market share and growth for tri-county based businesses; (2) to increase the number of the region’s businesses successfully participating in the New Energy economy; (3) to promote job growth and improve educational and employment opportunities for the Green Coast workforce; and (4) to improve regional environmental quality and preserve and sustain the region’s quality of life.

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But could these visionary thinkers get buy-in? The only way to find out was to call a meeting and see who showed up.

On January 14, in a quaint, picturesque, ocean side meeting room in Santa Barbara, Bill Buratto got up in front of a room filled to the exits and welcomed representatives of the state and local governments (including a coterie of people representing Congresswoman Capps), representatives of the state and local educational systems (from UC Santa Barbara and Santa Barbara City College to the local grade schools), some of the most important solar and wind industry developers in the world (including SunPower, First Solar, REC Solar and Clipper Windpower), people from big utilities (like Southern California Gas Company) and people with money (like Morgan Stanley, Agility Capital, EnTech Capital and Maverick Angels).

Buratto enthusiastically explained the plan, told them it needs a quarter of a million dollars to get going, broke them up into 6 working groups (Innovation/Entrepreneurship, Workforce Development/Education, Public Policy, Sustainable Ag, Utility Class Renewable Energy, Transportation) and essentially told THEM to tell HIM how to get the money and make the action plan happen.

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The working groups’ response was exciting. Other regional coalitions following the Green Coast development template will be interested in some of the details.

All 6 groups were enthusiastic about pooling resources and sharing information and made plans to develop an on-going exchange of ideas, some by trading email addresses, some by forming a Google group, and one by planning online meetings via the GoToMeeting online conference technology.

There was also nearly unanimous agreement on the need for much more public education at all levels, from the general public to the business sector.

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The Innovation/Entrepreneurship working group is going to create a matrix to identify resources in the three counties for students, entrepreneurs and small businesses and develop collaborations with other working groups.

The Workforce Development/Education working group intends to identify sectors for business relocations and expansions, push local cities and counties to identify resources that can be incorporated into the GCIZ economic strategy and pursue several collaborations to expand apprenticeships, grant programs and New Energy trade program certifications. It identified several needs, including resource mapping, advocacy, monitoring of progress and a fix for the “leaky pipeline” between the K-through-12 and community college systems and the New Energy and Energy Efficiency education and training programs.

The Public Policy working group will identify the best policies and incentives to create demand and remove barriers at the local, regional and state levels, support and implement effective existing policies, and work to change problematic ones.

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The big tri-county agricultural base warranted its own Sustainable Agricultural working group, which pledged to make stewardship of resources (especially water and energy) a priority, pursue a shift in the ag sector from unobtainable and unsustainable “least cost production” to “best cost production,” to develop a “Green Coast Producer” market awareness and set standards for growers and producers to meet if they want to take advantage of that market.

The Utility Class Renewable Energy working group pledged to make big energy projects in the tri-county region models of proper size and scope and to address the barriers (permitting, siting, technology development, availability of financing) slowing capacity growth.

The Transportation working group wants to create a regional vision for green transportation including less miles driven, more alternative fuels (especially in public and private fleets), more alternative fuel stations and more funding sources.

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The Energy Efficiency/Building & Construction working group wants to create a tri-county “blueprint” for efficient growth, create a tri-county code revision to enhance and expand new construction and retrofitting, bring in contractors associations, trade organizations, and identify a “loading order” for development that puts Energy Efficiency in buildings first and New Energy second.

The first brilliant thing about the way the GCIZ has so far been developed is that in its first formal meeting it swept up some of the most dynamic talents in the region and put them to work building opportunity – for themselves!

Beyond that, it is brilliant because it engages the tri-county region in a bottom-up response to California’s greater economic difficulties, a response localities in states across the country now would probably be well-advised to prepare.

Will this plan lead to a New Energy harvest for these 3 ambitious counties?

Finally, the GCIZ offers these California counties a pathway to profit while coming into compliance with the exciting climate change legislation California Governor Schwarzenegger and the state’s forward-thinking leaders have introduced.

Enthusiasm is spreading. It may only be a matter of time before the Green Coast is as familiar a euphemism for the Energy Technology boom as Silicon Valley was for the Information Technology boom.

Better yet, Silicon Valley spawned a plethora of successors, from North Carolina’s Technology Triangle to Bangalore, India’s High Tech Hub. Will the Green Coast Innovation Zone be the template for a world of transformational Energy Technology initiatives? Stay tuned.