About The Clean
Air Partners Program
What
is CAPP?
Clean Air Partners is a program of the CLEAN AIR Force of Central
Texas (CAF), of local employers pledging to reduce pollution-forming
emissions while receiving regional recognition in return. The program
recognizes local employers who reduce their emissions with a variety
of options, while promoting their clean air successes to the
community. Partners carry out clean air efforts via employee and
other clean business practices to reduce the emissions that
contribute to unhealthy air in our region. Employers report their
achievements once a year.
Origination of the Program:
The Clean Air Partners Program (CAPP) was developed by CAF and local
environmental and business organizations and stakeholders,
responding to the
fact that most of pollutants creating harmful
ground-level ozone pollution in Central Texas are coming from our
vehicles, both on-road (commuting vehicles) and off-road
(construction/lawn/site vehicles and equipment). Since local
employers are the main cause for our on-road vehicle
emissions, the CAF went straight to the source
and
recruited six major employers in the region to charter the program
and help develop innovative strategies to reduce emissions. The six
Charter Partners were AMD, Intel, Motorola,
Samsung, Solectron and Vignette. Our current Partners are listed on our
Partners
Page.
A Doable Program:
Any employer within Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis and Williamson
Counties of Central Texas is eligible to become a Clean Air Partner. Partners pledge
to make a good faith effort to reduce at least 10% of their ozone-forming
emissions within three years. Each Partner creates its own emissions
baseline in which to reduce from and selects a customized set of
clean air efforts (including those ongoing!) practical for that
Partner’s business makeup. Such efforts include employee commute
solutions (encouraging transit use, vanpooling, carpooling,
teleworking, biking, walking, compressed/flexible schedules), use of
cleaner fleets and fuels, clean energy practices, low-emission
construction and landscaping activities, utility conservation, and
many other activities that can contribute to cleaner air.
Each
Partner reports its annual successes once a year via a user-friendly
online reporting tool that calculates the Partner’s emission
reductions, while archiving the data and tracking the percent of
total emissions reduced.
Clean Air Partners is Good Business:
Why
become a Partner? The best reason is because it
makes good business sense. Most of the emission reduction strategies
result in saving employers and employees money. In addition,
Partners are publicly thanked and recognized in a variety of
advertisements, events and publications.
Secondly, an employer can
become a steward of our community and our environment. Air quality
is everyone’s business because everyone contributes to our ozone
problem. From our tailpipes, to our everyday services and our daily
utility use, every individual and employer has the opportunity to
give back and make a positive impact on Central Texas. Clean Air
Partners offers employers this opportunity by doing their share for
cleaner air.
See the list of many benefits to becoming a Partner on
our Join
Page. Save money? Become a steward of our community? Those are
certainly worthy reasons to consider becoming Clean Air Partners!