California Green Innovation Index

Dear Californians,

California has long played an international role as an incubator of innovation. From the integrated circuit to Web 2.0, recombinant DNA to genomics, world changing ideas and inventions have had their genesis in this state. Lesser known, however, is California’s role in “green” innovation, and the significant impact green innovation can make on the state’s economic and environmental health.

Next 10, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, is launching the California Green Innovation Index to track the state’s green innovation as well as economic and environmental performance within the context of the landmark California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32). The Index analyzes key indicators including energy consumption and efficiency, economic growth and carbon emissions, to better understand the role green innovation plays in achieving two goals critical to California’s future: 1) reducing the absolute level of the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, and 2) increasing the state’s gross domestic product, which is the basis for our economic vitality.

This inaugural issue contains several important findings:

• As a result of the first wave of green innovation, which began in the 1970s, California has become a world leader in energy efficiency. In relative terms, California is more energy efficient and emits fewer greenhouse gas emissions per person than the rest of the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom or Japan.
• California’s economy has grown as a result of this first wave of green innovation.
• California may be at an inflection point between the first and second waves of green innovation driven by factors similar to those that drove the first wave: policy, demand and investment.
• While California has made enormous progress, the state’s rate of population growth requires that the next wave of innovation be larger, faster and more powerful than the last to meet the mandate of AB 32.

Working with leading experts, Next 10 produced the California Green Innovation Index in support of our mission to educate and engage Californians on issues important to the state’s future. There is no more important issue today than addressing global warming while growing a vibrant economy.

Sincerely,

F. Noel Perry

Founder, Next 10