From Oct. 1 to March 31, cities across California competed against one another in the 2015-2016 CoolCalifornia Challenge to see who would be named the “coolest city” in California. Claremont participated in this event last year but placed 20th overall. With 524 members, Claremont accumulated 1,354,105 points over the past five months. With 22 other cities competing to be the “coolest city” in California, Claremont took the lead by 810,147 points, with Long Beach and Burlingame following in second and third place, respectively. To motivate cities and individuals, the challenge called attention to the growing need to reduce California’s carbon footprint on a global scale. As a reward to encourage people to do their best, the top three cities that accumulate the highest amount of points in the competition were rewarded with a share of $150,000 for sustainability projects.

The CoolCalifornia Challenge’s primary objective was to focus efforts on helping to raise environmental awareness through promoting energy efficiency tactics to help lower carbon footprints. By doing so, the necessary steps can be taken to prevent climate change and to build sustainable communities. The challenge supported citizens to do their best, whether it be students or business managers, in reducing their energy consumption. To encourage citizens, California has offered prizes to the city as well as awarding individual participants who earned the most points for their city.

“We want to start making people become more conscious of their everyday energy usage and how much they consume each day so they will become more knowledgeable and aware about the environmental impact that each household causes,” Mayor Sam Pedroza said. “The CoolCalifornia Challenge really helps bring awareness, and for the people of Claremont who are very educated, this is another step for them to evaluate and reconsider how they affect the environment.”

Participating cities were asked to enter their data about their daily environmental usage, such as their energy rates like gas, electricity, water usage, and car mileage. Tracking the energy used by their home and everyday driving, participants were able to log the information in to collect points to bring their city closer to first place. By analyzing how much energy is depleted, households were able to see their energy usage for each day. Through surveying energy habits to help residents save both money and energy, California is encouraging people to begin to take more drastic measures to advance toward a more sustainable and green city.

Being first place for the CoolCalifornia Challenge is only the beginning, and is merely a premise for a bigger challenge: the Georgetown University Energy Prize. As the only eligible city from California, Claremont will be one of the 50 other semifinalists across the nation to be able to participate in this challenge, with a $5 million prize hanging overhead.
The 2015-2016 CoolCalifornia Challenge has certainly been an exciting one for Claremont, and the participating cities have hopefully become more perceptive on issues regarding the current environmental standing. As California strives to control natural resources, residents can look forward to an eco-friendly future for the Golden State.