Colorado Green Business Network of the Yampa Valley

The Colorado Green Business Network of the Yampa Valley is a free, technical assistance and environmental recognition program. We work with local businesses and organizations to support and recognize excellence in sustainable operations, equity and resource management.

What is the Colorado Green Business Network of the Yampa Valley?

The Colorado Green Business Network of the Yampa Valley (CGBN-YV) is a Regional Partner of the Colorado Green Business Network (CGBN) – a state initiative created through the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. We are a free, voluntary program that provides technical assistance to, and promotion and recognition of, local businesses and organizations in the Yampa Valley pursuing sustainability goals.

Our role is to provide an accessible, Yampa Valley-based team with the knowledge and tools to walk you through the CGBN registration and application process. Our goal is to make it easy to connectwith funding, resources and skills that make sustainability attainable across business sector and size.

How it works

The first step to joining the Colorado Green Business Network of the Yampa Valley is registering your business or organization in CGBN’s GreenBiz Tracker. If your business prefers to communicate in Spanish, please use this link (Spanish GreenBiz Tracker registration). This simple (and quick) step of signing up will get you connected to the CGBN newsletter, which includes information about upcoming events and educational and funding opportunities. All freely available.

Once registered and depending on your sustainability goals, CGBN-YV freely supports you through three approaches:

1) Conducting off-site coaching and on-site technical assistance to any business that requests it. These assessments are a valuable way to identify opportunities for environmental and social performance and resource savings, and to target areas businesses want to improve such as energy, water, waste and transportation.

2) Providing businesses with a report of recommendations and connections to rebates, grants, additional technical assistance and ongoing coaching and support in the form of trainings, newsletters, workshops, events and networking opportunities.

3) For businesses or organizations that choose to pursue Bronze, Silver or Gold-level certification, recognizing and awarding businesses for exemplary practices that lead to resource reduction. Certified businesses are recognized in a public, searchable CGBN directory and receive a CGBN press kit including a window decal for storefront marketing, logo and governor signed certificate. Additionally, certified businesses receive priority permitting within the CO Department of Public Health and Environment, support with regulatory assistance, and letters of recommendation for grant and program applications.

Contact Us:

Green Business Workshops:

3.27.24 – Earning points for recognition – slides, recording

5.29.24 – Funding opportunities – slides, recording

CGBN State Resources:

Your contribution makes a difference

Your contributions and actions matter to the sustainability of the Yampa Valley. By joining this program, not only will you be lessening your environmental impact on the valley that we all cherish, but you will also be advancing economic sustainability for your business. You will be setting an example for the Yampa Valley community to prioritize sustainability, while attracting customers who are looking for businesses contributing to the community and making a positive impact.

FAQ

The Colorado Green Business Network of the Yampa Valley provides a support system, mentorship, technical assistance, and statewide and local recognition for businesses that are interested in improving their environmental and social performance.

At our Support Level a business receives;

• Ongoing technical assistance, on and off-site
• Access to our monthly opportunities and funding newsletter
• Access to all of our (free) workshops and events

This is available without any application, and only requires registration in GreenBizTracker

As a CGBN and YVSC Certified Business our recognized members gain additional benefits including:

• A public directory on GreenBizTracker
• Organization name and information on our website
• A press kit from the state including the logo, a window decal, and governor signed certificate
• Priority permitting within CDPHE
• Support with regulatory assistance
• Letters of recommendation when applying to grants and programs

The application for the Colorado Green Business Network of the Yampa Valley is points based, so you don’t need to be able to answer every question in order to receive recognition. Many questions will be related to policies and procedures that the owner or manager will already know about the business, and others may be relating to resource reduction projects that take a bit more time to organize and track. Our technical manual provides an overview of each question, to help you understand the criteria better.

Depending on the extent of your business’ environmental and social efforts so far, the application can take anywhere from 1 to 3 hours to complete. Over time, you’ll have more information that you can provide.

Examples of items that you may want to collect before completing the application are listed below:
• Utility Bills, including electricity and heating bills, water bills, and waste collection bills
• Records & Policies, like mileage records on vehicles, employment policies, and sourcing/purchasing policies.

If your business leases the space in which it operates, you may be able to get information related to utility bills from your landlord. If you are not able to obtain this information, it’s OK! We can help you brainstorm solutions, but you also may not need them for lower levels of recognition.

Our program is part of a statewide effort to reduce emissions across industry, and all of our services are totally free of charge. Our goal is to make it easy to connect with funding, resources, and skills that make sustainability attainable across business sectors and sizes.

We do technical assistance across all industries and sectors, from non-profits, to schools, to retail, to manufacturing. Any industry and organization can sign up and benefit from the network.

In order to maintain good standing in the Colorado Green Business Network, organizations will need to:

1. Submit annual updates. As a big part of the program framework is tied to continual improvement and engagement in the community, annual updates have been a long standing part of the Colorado Green Business Network. These annual updates are also done through the GreenBizTracker software, and take the form of an update survey that will be sent out each year, and will need to be turned in by the application deadline. This should take no more than an hour or two annually.

2. Renew every 3 years, during which you will resubmit all information provided at time of application, and will undergo an additional compliance check, identical to the check a new member will experience.

Once a business receives recognition, they receive all of the benefits of our program.

Other than that, the program offers many resources for businesses, including workshops.

The Colorado Green Business Program’s official rating system is divided up into 3 levels and is a points based application that rewards efforts in energy, water, waste & purchasing, transportation, and policy.

• Bronze: 25 Points
• Silver: 50 Points
• Gold: 100 Points

Something important to keep in mind is that sustainability is a process. When you first fill out our application, you might have a lot of questions you can’t answer – and that’s OK! Bronze is really designed as an entry level for businesses who have just completed a few efficiency projects, and are wanting to do more.

For baseline year, you should use the first year that you tracked that resource. The baseline data you provide is what we will use to compare with your current year data. The year may be different for each resource. If you don’t have any data for a specific resource, that’s OK.

All questions are opt-in, so you don’t need to be able to complete every field. For example, if you started tracking your energy use in 2016, that would be the year you would provide for your baseline energy data. If you first started tracking water use in 2018, that year would be your baseline for water. If you don’t have baseline data for waste, you do not need to fill out that section.

Yes, for the “use intensity” variable field, you should enter your variable for the same year as your baseline data. For example, if you entered 2016 as your baseline for energy use, and you want your “use intensity” to be measured by customers served, you will enter the number of customers served in 2016 in the “use intensity” variable field next to your baseline energy data. Then, when you enter your current year data in the resource reduction survey, you’ll enter the number of customers served in the current year.

We appreciate the sensitivity of the data that participating organizations provide to the CO Green Business Network (CGBN), and do our best to limit its use to only what the CGBN member is comfortable sharing or publicizing (e.g. through training, case studies, and other educational material). The data entered into Green Business Tracker, however, is available to the public through a Colorado Opens Record Act (CORA) request. Upon a CORA request, the CGBN would develop an estimate of the costs associated with the manipulation or development of the data, to the requestor. The CGBN, and the legacy Environmental Leadership and Pollution Prevention programs very rarely experience CORA requests for business data.

If a waste material is being reused as an otherwise purchased resource, this can be considered a REDUCTION in waste, as the waste is being taken off site and is no longer included in your waste weights.

Right now we are seeing more funding put toward clean energy and electric vehicles than ever before. Local, state and federal governments recognize the immediate impacts carbon emissions have on our health and environment, and are committed to supporting and incentivizing the transition to a cleaner economy.

GRANTS:

USDA: Rural Energy for America Program

CEO: Charge Ahead Colorado

CEO: Fleet Zero-Emission Resource Opportunity

CDPHE: Clean Fleet Vehicle and Technology Grant

EOC: Nonprofit Energy Efficiency Program

CDPHE: Colorado Green Business Network Mini-Grants

TAX CREDITS:

USDOE: Federal Solar Investment Tax Credit

IRS: Energy Efficiency Commercial Building/Retrofit Property

IRS: Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit

CEO: Colorado Commercial Heat Pump Tax Credit

LOANS AND FINANCING:

USDA: Rural Energy for America Program

Colorado Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE)

Colorado Clean Energy Fund

REBATES:

YVEA Energy Hero Rebates

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FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES BY ORGANIZATION: Informational Reports

AGRICULTURAL

CDA: ACRE3 Program

USDA: Conservation Stewardship Program

USDA: Environmental Quality Incentives Program

USDA: Rural Energy for America Program

COMMERCIAL

Colorado Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE)

DOE: Federal Solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC)

DOE: Federal Solar Production Tax Credit (PTC)

USDA: Rural Energy for America Program

INDUSTRIAL

Colorado Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE/Contractors)

Colorado Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE/Developers)

LOCAL AND TRIBAL

DOE: Federal Solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC)

DOE: Federal Solar Production Tax Credit (PTC)

COEDIT: Colorado Dark Sky Certification Mentor Program

NON-PROFIT

DOE: Federal Solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC)

DOE: Federal Solar Production Tax Credit (PTC)

COEDIT: Colorado Dark Sky Certification Mentor Program

TOURISM

COEDIT: Colorado Rural Academy for Tourism Mentor Program

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