This Week's News for LA’s Best Buildings

Is California Doing Enough on Climate? We Asked the New CPUC Chief

What employs 1,400 people, has a $2.8-billion budget and oversees Pacific Gas & Electric, Uber and the Union Pacific Railroad?

If you guessed the California Public Utilities Commission, well, you probably read the headline of this story.

Or, if you’re like me, you’re intimately familiar with the 143-year-old agency. The CPUC is a powerful bureaucracy with a long list of regulatory responsibilities, including electric and gas utilities, ride-hailing services, rail safety and privately owned water utilities.

EPA Campaign Targets Commercial Building Energy Efficiency

New U.S. Environmental Protection Agency initiatives will provide policymakers and commercial building owners resources to reduce emissions from more than 6 million commercial and multifamily buildings. Through decades of partnership with EPA’s Energy Star program, private and public building owners have significantly reduced their emissions and energy costs by improving their properties’ energy efficiency and performance.

The Case to Office-to-Multifamily Adaptive Reuse

In general, adaptive reuse for commercial buildings is gaining favor due to its potential for higher returns, cheaper materials costs and being more economical compared to demolitions and having a reduced environmental impact on the area by much less hauling to landfills.

Bringing Cities and Their Utilities into the 21st Century

You wouldn’t rely on a 30-year-old contract with your phone or internet provider. Times change, and so do the conditions under which a contract was signed. Yet that is exactly what many cities do with their electric and gas utilities. A franchise agreement is a contract between a city or county and its utility that lays out how the utility can operate on public property. Many of these contracts are decades old, written in a vastly different world than today when climate change was less of a concern.

The 10 Most Innovative Energy Companies in 2022

Explore the full 2022 list of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, 528 organizations whose efforts are reshaping their businesses, industries, and the broader culture. We’ve selected the firms making the biggest impact with their initiatives across 52 categories, including the most innovative corporate social responsibility, design, and social good companies.

Image by Gary Coronado via Los Angeles Times