2022 Impact Report Highlights the Ways CEC Is Making an Impact on California’s Central Coast
SANTA BARBARA — This week the Community Environmental Council (CEC) released its 2022 Impact Report, which provides key highlights of how the organization is working to immediately tackle the urgent threat of climate change on California’s Central Coast. The report is accessible at cecsb.org/impact.
The report comes just as CEC is about to open the Environmental Hub, a 10,000-square-foot space for innovation and collaboration at 1219 State Street in the heart of downtown Santa Barbara’s ARTS District. CEC’s Environmental Hub will open on Thursday, July 6, with a ribbon cutting at 5:30p.m.; the open house is from 5:00-8:00p.m.
“With a focus on scaling environmental solutions for over 50 years on the California Central Coast, and facing the unprecedented pace of climate change, a key focus of our work is building networks of diverse, engaged activists who champion rigorous climate action in our region and beyond,” said CEO Sigrid Wright. “The opening of the new Hub, the release of the 2022 Impact Report, and the expansion of our work into new program areas signals how our approach is working.”
The 2022 Impact Report highlights the organization’s proven reputation for building collective power to test, incubate, and scale community-led solutions to complex problems. Highlights include:
- Designing Electrify Your Life, a service that provides one-on-one assistance to single-family homeowners, property managers, businesses, and nonprofits to help make going electric affordable. By transitioning residents and businesses to clean energy and clean vehicles, CEC is helping the Central Coast move away from gasoline and natural gas more quickly.
- Developing Nuestro Tiempo, a space for Spanish-speaking community members to learn more about climate change and design ways to take action. Through connection and collaboration, participants are empowered to engage in and take action on climate issues, building climate resilience for their families and communities.
- Training 100 (and counting) CEC Climate Stewards to lead grassroots climate action that ripples out far beyond our region. Through capstone projects, graduates are deploying curricula at regional museums and conservation centers, inspiring climate leadership in thousands of individuals in our region and around the world.
About the Community Environmental Council (CEC) — CEC advances rapid and equitable solutions to the climate crisis—including ambitious zero carbon goals, drawdown of excess carbon, and protection against the impacts of climate change. CEC was recognized as a 2020 California Nonprofit of the Year and a City of Santa Barbara Climate Hero, and is led by CEO Sigrid Wright who was recently named 2022 Congressional Woman of the Year. CEC has worked since 1970 to incubate and innovate real life environmental solutions that directly affect the California Central Coast. Our programs lead to clean vehicles, solar energy, resilient food systems and reduction of single-use plastic.
Learn more about the work of CEC and why it receives high ratings from both Charity Navigator and Guidestar at CECSB.org/impact. Find CEC on the web at CECSB.org and on Facebook.com/CECSB, Instagram.com/CEC_SB, Twitter.com/CECSB, and Linkedin.com/company/cecsb/.