Two Business Sustainability Programs for Virginia and Fairfax County

This article is about our info session we had on Thursday Nov 12th with guest speaker Jessica Lavender CEM of the Fairfax County Green Business Partner Program, Virginia Green Initiative's Green Business Challenge, and Gerry Gurgick of Target: Energy Zero giving an intro to PACE financing for Commercial property owners in Virginia. Gerry also listed some tax incentives that are available for businesses in Virginia.

This session could not have been possible without the help from Jennifer Rose, Executive Director of the Central Fairfax Chamber of Commerce.

Jessica Lavender started off our event by introducing us to the Fairfax County Green Business Partner Program.

Membership in the Green Business Partners program is free. To participate, a business simply must:

Own, manage, or lease at least one location in Fairfax County.
Submit a completed application including:
At least five (5) sustainability actions in the areas of management and leadership, energy, waste, water, and transportation. Participants are encouraged, but not required, to take advantage of third-party certification programs, such as ENERGY STAR® or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®).
At least one (1) quantitative result, such as kilowatt hours of electricity saved or tons of cardboard recycled. While we ask that you share at least 1 quantitative result, we hope that you’ll share many more so that your success can inspire others.
Renew every three years. Participating businesses must update their profile once every three years to maintain a listing in the Green Business Directory.

Many thank-yous to Ms. Lavender for joining us in our event.

Next Candice Guillaudeu reviewed Virginia Green Initiative, Inc's (VGI) Green Business Challenge. The VGI Green Business Challenge is also free to participate. There are 2 scorecards, the Commercial scorecard is for businesses that own their own building and the Home/Tenant scorecard is for all other businesses.

Gerry Gurgick of Target: Energy Zero gave us an introduction to the PACE program in Virginia and also listed out some incentives that are currently available to businesses.

10% tax credit on solar in Loudoun County
26% on solar for 2020, being reduced to 22% in 2021.
Dominion Energy - Businesses can sign up with Dominion Energy to provide Energy Audits for residents.

Find energy saving incentives through the DSIRE site listed by state.

Below is the main PowerPoint used in the event.

PPT#1: Presentation slides (give it a few seconds to show up below).

{cbdocembed url="https://yourbusinessourworld.com/images/Presentations/2020/Nov_12_2020_VGI_Info_Session_by_YBOW_v4.pdf"}