Another Successful Earth Day! Thank you.
We are proud to report 37,364 people attended Santa Barbara Earth Day this year! (Special thanks to our dedicated volunteer crowd counters, who tracked attendance from 6 entry locations). It's beyond inspiring to see so many people gather to share information, participate in community building, and celebrate this year’s theme “Local Roots,” which encouraged meaningful actions to help make a global impact. The festival was organized around the CEC’s five initiatives: Drive Less, Choose Electric, Go Solar, Ditch Plastic, and Eat Local.
2014 Earth Day Festival Stats
At CEC’s booth, 794 pledges were made that – if fulfilled — would prevent approximately 1,631,130 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions from being emitted in the atmosphere.
Approximately 1,020 bikes were valet parked; an estimated 1,000 more were self-parked.
Around 380 people took a test drive in one of the electric vehicles in the event’s Ride & Drive section of the 16th Annual Santa Barbara Green Car Show, the longest-running public focused Green Car Show in the U.S. This included ride and drives in the widely acclaimed Tesla S, Toyota RAV4 EV (the first all-electric SUV on the market), and the Nissan Leaf.
91% of the waste generated was composted, recycled or otherwise diverted from the landfill. All waste was collected and hand-sorted on site by Green Project Consultants, with assistance from the California Conservation Corps.
This year’s festival had about 250 volunteers who helped with building, running, and tearing down the festival over the course of five days.
Environmental Hero
We were pleased to present the 2014 Environmental Hero Award to County Supervisor Salud Carbajal, who accepted his award in person. “CEC is such an important organization in promoting sustainability in our community," said Carbajal. "It is a special honor for me to receive this award.”
Thanks so much to this environmental supporter!
Special Thanks
A huge thank you to this year’s core partners LoaTree, New Noise Media Group, Oniracom, Plus One Events, Sprout Up, Learningden Preschool, Cultivate Events, and Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition as well as dozens of other partners and hundreds of volunteers. We invite you to applaud their incredible energy and commitment by posting your thanks on our Facebook page.
Share your photos
We know you took some great shots — please share them!
You can post your photos and videos to one of our sites (including Facebook, Instagram #sbearthday, or Flickr) or mail a CD or thumb drive to CEC (26 W. Anapamu St. 2nd floor) for a chance to be used in festival promotional materials for 2015.