Ecology Action is a non-profit

environmental organization An environmental organization is an organization coming out of the conservation or environmental movements that seeks to protect, analyse or monitor the environment against misuse or degradation from human forces. In this sense the environme ...

and consultancy founded in 1970 under

Internal Revenue Code The Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (IRC), is the domestic portion of federal statutory tax law in the United States. It is codified in statute as Title 26 of the United States Code. The IRC is organized topically into subtitles and sections, co ...

Section 501(c)(3) in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

. The organization has since moved its headquarters to

Santa Cruz, California Santa Cruz (Spanish language, Spanish for "Holy Cross") is the largest city and the county seat of Santa Cruz County, California, Santa Cruz County, in Northern California. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city population ...

, with satellite offices in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially the City of San José ( ; ), is a cultural, commercial, and political center within Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. With a city population of 997,368 and a metropolitan area population of 1.95 million, it is ...

, and

Sacramento, California Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat, seat of Sacramento County, California, Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento Rive ...

, where it employs approximately 100 people and operates a variety of energy saving, water, waste reduction, and

greenhouse gas emission Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activities intensify the greenhouse effect. This contributes to climate change. Carbon dioxide (), from burning fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, oil, and natural gas, is the main cause of climate chan ...

reduction programs. The organization assists businesses, governments, and utilities in designing and implementing programs in

efficient energy use Efficient energy use, or energy efficiency, is the process of reducing the amount of energy required to provide products and services. There are many technologies and methods available that are more energy efficient than conventional systems. For ...

water conservation Water conservation aims to sustainably manage the natural resource of fresh water, protect the hydrosphere, and meet current and future human demand. Water conservation makes it possible to avoid water scarcity. It covers all the policies, strateg ...

, and

sustainable transportation Sustainable transport is transportation sustainable in terms of their social and environmental impacts. Components for evaluating sustainability include the particular vehicles used; the source of energy; and the infrastructure used to accommod ...

History

Ecology Action was launched on

Earth Day Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally through earthday.org (formerly Earth Day Network) includin ...

in 1970 as an all-volunteer, unmanned recycling donation depot for bottles and cans. Forty years later, the organization has become a leader in California’s sustainability program design and development with active programs focused on driving behavior change in water conservation, energy management, and alternative transportation. The organization persevered through the conservative backlash of the 1980s—when the state froze over half a million dollars of their grant contracts—and the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009.

of 2007–2009. Despite these setbacks, Ecology Action’s sustainability programs have helped over 20,000 California residents and business owners save millions of gallons of water and reduce energy consumption by half a million

kilowatt hours A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a non-SI unit of energy equal to 3.6 megajoules (MJ) in SI units, which is the energy delivered by one kilowatt of power for one hour. Kilowatt-hours are a common b ...

each year. In 2009, the organization began to renovate the former ''

Santa Cruz Sentinel The ''Santa Cruz Sentinel'' is a daily newspaper published in Santa Cruz, California, covering Santa Cruz County, California, and owned by Media News Group, which is controlled by Alden Global Capital. History The paper was owned by the McP ...

'' newspaper building with two other partners. The organization also sponsors Bike To Work Week, inviting over ten thousand students and adults to bike to school and/or their places of work twice a year.

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Environmental organizations based in California Charities based in California Santa Cruz, California 501(c)(3) organizations Environmental organizations established in 1970 1970 establishments in California