Climate Action and Resiliency

Summary of objective implementation status

The Climate Action and Resiliency Division and Permit Sonoma have developed and implemented a resource hub for carbon neutrality, resiliency, and fire hardening construction for new and existing homes for landowners to support them in mitigating climate and fire risk.

Climate Action and Resiliency’s outreach strategy included development of program materials such as the Home Resilience Guide, a comprehensive guide used to educate residents on making on making their homes improvements towards carbon neutrality while being more resilient to disasters such as wildfires and seismic events. The information in the guidebook was made into a workshop series, Your Energy Efficient and Resilient Home. The in-person workshop was presented in both English and Spanish at various locations throughout Sonoma County with over 450 registrants. A quarterly webinar series was also developed and continues to be well attended with over 3,500 participants to date. The topics are the hour-long webinars include subject matter based on the Home Resilience Guide. To support the on-demand audience, an online video library was created to replay content. In addition to tabling numerous public events, a semi-annual Induction Cooking Expo was created to introduce the benefits and ease of cooking without gas. To date there have been four expos held with over 320 participants. The next phase of the strategy will include the introduction of the Path to Electrification campaign which will include targeted digital media campaigns, informational webinars and in-person workshops designed to educate residents on being thoughtful about making improvements towards decarbonization. The campaign will focus on assessing energy use, prioritizing energy efficiency, changing out gas burning equipment, and adding clean energy.

In 2024, Permit Sonoma staff for the FEMA-funded wildfire resilience grants conducted outreach and education activities in grant project areas that promoted fire hardening construction. These initiatives included providing free home hardening assessments to residents in the project areas. As of November 2024, over 750 full home hardening assessments and over 1900 curbside home hardening assessments. Each assessment educates the homeowner about their structure’s vulnerabilities to ignition and prioritizes the actions they can take to reduce their risk. Additionally, project staff routinely tabled and presented at community-led events, hosted a series of well-attended grant project webinars, sent mailers to property owners in the project areas, and conducted numerous robust social media campaigns (including with paid social ads), all including educational content about fire hardening construction.

Key milestone update

Develop a Home Resilience Guide for residents in English and Spanish and available in-print or digital download – COMPLETE

Develop and implement an in-person workshop and online webinar series – ONGOING

Development and implementation of the Path to Electrification campaign – IN PROGRESS

Table and attend community events – ONGOING

Bulk mail to property owners in project areas – COMPLETE

Creation and implementation of educational social media campaigns – ONGOING

Climate Action and Resiliency’s implementation of in-person workshops has proven to be quite effective. Since launching, there have been over 450 registered participants. Webinars continue to be well attended with over 3,500 registered and attended since inception.

Permit Sonoma’s FEMA-funded Wildfire Adapted Part 1 and Part 2 projects provided free structure hardening assessments to residents, including over 750 full home hardening assessments that residents opted in to, and over 1900 curbside home hardening assessments from the public right of way.

Coordination and partnership update

Coordination efforts continue to align messaging with external partners, including Permit Sonoma, Bay Area Regional Energy Network (BayREN), Sonoma Clean Power, and the Regional Climate Protection Authority (RCPA).

Community, equity and climate update

Expansion of the outreach plan to the LatinX community continues and includes a contract with a third-party consultant that is very closely aligned with the community to advise on most effective methods of outreach. Outreach efforts include workshops presented entirely in Spanish, development of curriculum for adult English as a second language (ESL) students, along with translated program materials.

Outreach materials for the FEMA-funded wildfire resilience projects were produced in English and Spanish, and live translation was made available at project-hosted webinars and tabling events in primarily Spanish-speaking communities.

Objective funding

The funds allocated for this are 65% expended on the costs of completed implementation. Costs associated with the Path to Electrification campaign are expected to utilize the remainder of the funds by June 30, 2025.