C-PACE is available in Loudoun County, VA!  

Thursday November 7th, Virginia PACE held a workshop introducing the application process for Loudoun County commercial properties.

PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) is a financing tool for commercial property owners to put energy, renewable and/or water conservation improvements on their buildings.  Virginia at this time only allows for Commercial PACE programs, thus the acronym, C-PACE.

Currently, C-PACE programs are available in Arlington and Alexandria, and expectations are that it's coming to Fairfax, Fredericksburg, Richmond, Norfolk, and later on into Lynchburg, Roanoke and Albemarle county.

Congratulations to Gerry Gurgick who's persistence in getting PACE implemented in Virginia and Loudoun County came to be.  Thank-you Gerry!!

Resource Links:

• Virginia PACE
• Loudoun County PACE info

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"}

Watermark Woods Nursery:

Who doesn’t love watching butterflies?  They flitter from flower to flower, wings opening and closing, just doing their thing as they feed off its nectar, it’s no wonder people are fascinated with them.  You can create your own butterfly garden, by using plants native to your area. Plants have developed over time, so to speak, to work with the insects and birds and butterflies for your region.

Native plants are part of an evolution of a whole foundation of systems and interactions that support a region’s butterflies, birds, insects, bees, etc., who rely on to grow and live.  

Here in the Virginia Piedmont area, one example of how to use native plants is to help feed the Monarch Butterflies during their migration each year.  Their populations have decreased dramatically over the last twenty years due to loss of habitat through development and pesticide use.  Monarchs have a special relationship with milkweed.  Milkweed is the only plant a monarch larva(caterpillar) can survive on. Without milkweed we have no monarchs.