With this investment Pacific Gas and Electric’s (PG&E’s) ClimateSmart program will purchase 214,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions, including 200,000 metric tons from The Conservation Fund’s Garcia River Forest, located on California’s North Coast, and 14,000 metric tons from Sempervirens Fund’s Lompico Headwaters Forest, located in Santa Cruz County.
PG&E’s ClimateSmart program is a voluntary GHG emission reduction program that allows customers to balance out the GHG emissions that are produced by the energy they use, making their energy use climate neutral. To date, more than 17,500 customers have enrolled in PG&E’s ClimateSmart program.
As more customers enroll in the ClimateSmart program, PG&E will seek more GHG reductions through more projects. Using the competitive bidding process, PG&E plans to invest ClimateSmart funds in a range of projects, such as livestock manure management projects that capture methane gas from dairy farms and conserving and restoring California’s native forests.
Through the first three years of the program, ClimateSmart has set a goal to invest in projects that yield 1.5 million tons of CO2 reductions or more. When a customer enrolls in the program, PG&E will calculate the amount of GHG emissions produced by the customer’s electricity and gas usage. For the average residential customer, PG&E estimates that the cost will be less than $5 per month.
