Small gas powered landscaping equipment such as leaf blowers and lawn mowers create a lot of noise and pollution. According to the California Air Resources Board (CARB), operating a gas powered lawn mower for one hour emits the same amount of smog-forming pollution as driving a 2017 Toyota Camry 300 miles from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. That is pretty remarkable but the emissions from a leaf blower are even more astonishing. CARB published using a gas powered leaf blower for one hour emits the same amount of smog-forming pollution as driving a 2017 Toyota Camry 1,100 miles from Los Angeles to Denver. CARB states the number of these small engines operating in California is 16.7 million which is greater than the number of light-duty passenger cars. The amount of pollutants emitted from the small gas powered engines rated at or below 19kW is being addressed and included in the emissions reduction plans.
Makello’s Ethical Energy Savings Report is the result of a detailed trade-off study of discount utility rates, Community Choice Aggregation options, grants, rebates, tax credits, and equipment options, to determine the fastest payback and highest return on investment, to meet your home, business and vehicle energy needs.
The program addressing emissions reductions is the California Clean Off-Road Equipment Voucher Incentive Project (CORE) https://californiacore.org. CORE is authorized by Senate Bill 170 (SB170) and funded by California Cap and Trade Investments. The program provides incentives for users of small off-road equipment to adopt zero emission equipment. Some examples of equipment being incentivized are: Leaf blowers and vacuums, Chainsaws, String trimmers, Edgers, Hedgers, Walk-behind/ Ride-on mowers.
The CORE program provides point of purchase vouchers and funding is capped at $25,000 per eligible purchaser. Eligible equipment must be listed in the CORE eligible equipment catalog and purchased from a CORE approved dealer. CORE program allows the stacking of funds but other programs may not. At any rate, stacking funds must not exceed 100% of equipment cost.
Program funds are distributed on a first come first serve basis until funds are no longer available.
In our blog post “Greenbacks for Green Tech, Cash Back for San Diegans”, we discussed incentives facilitating the adoption of energy efficient technologies for owners of residential buildings and vehicles. SD-Sequel http://sd-sequel.org reached out to us and thankfully brought to our attention rebates available for small and micro sized landscaping businesses.
Visit https://californiacore.org for more information on the CORE program.
The CORE program handbook is available here, https://californiacore.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Attachment-D_Final_9.21.22_ADA.pdf