1 Introduction

The Office of the Mayor in Stockton, CA is seeking to differentiate and expand the City’s investment opportunities, including potential capital from public (e.g. Transformative Climate Communities, AB 617), private (e.g. Opportunity Zones, startups), and philanthropic (e.g. foundations) sources, through the lens of green economy. The challenge at hand is to conduct a comprehensive assessment of Stockton’s assets and opportunities across a wide range of industry, infrastructure, development, and policy domains which could be viewed as green economy investment opportunities. This would then enable City and community representatives to prioritize and drive evidence-informed discussions with environmental justice groups, prospective outside partners, and investors. In particular, there are opportunities to explore how data and insights gathered from this framework could inform cutting-edge educational opportunities as well as research & development efforts. The net benefits here are an informed community, demonstrable short-term projects that generate environmental and economic benefits, long-term alignment with future educational initiatives, and further investment interest.

City Systems has conducted a research activity with the following intended outcomes:

  1. An active repository of data to inform green economy investment opportunities, including: relevant technical review, practical case studies of implementation in other cities, key risks/challenges, and estimated ranges of possible environmental and economic benefits per dollar of investment.
  2. Education & communication materials for Stockton’s City representatives, community stakeholders, and partners to use in external outreach.
  3. A decision-making aide for a series of green demonstration projects in the short-term (2020-2022) informed by consensus-building discussion with local stakeholders.
  4. Guide the discussion on what it would look like for Stockton and San Joaquin County to build a green economy lab in the region that addresses aggressive GHG reduction and creates jobs and workforce opportunities for residents.

Additionally, robust background reading is available in the City’s 2014 Climate Action Plan. It’s also recommended that this green economy analysis is paired with the 2019 Sustainable Neighborhood Plan to get a sense of current and evolving community priorities.

The following document describes our methodology and results. Given the scope of this report, readers are encouraged to navigate freely throughout different sections using the table of contents on the left, or with the summary table below.

If you are interested in… Skip to…
Baseline assessment of economy and GHG footprint Chapter 2
Overview of over fifty green economy strategies from around the U.S. Chapter 3
Analysis of specific green economy strategies for Stockton Chapter 4
U.S. strategy overview organized by city/county/state Appendix A

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Acknowledgements

Leadership at the Greenlining Institute facilitated a number of community-level conversations to highlight the critical role of community engagement — particularly during the City’s TCC application process. Thank you to Alvaro Sanchez, Emi Wang, and Nia Mitchell, in particular.

The community, including the Rise Stockton coalition, provided the inspiration for efforts around environmental justice. The Mayor’s Office guided this entire project, overseen by Ann Rogan. A number of community members attended regular check-ins and provided valuable feedback; they included Jasmine Leek, Amanda Ford, Max Vargas, Taylor Williams, Darryl Rutherford, and Christine Corrales. Finn Dobkin, an AmeriCorps VISTA in Stockton, led the research on green economy strategies.

On the Stanford Future Bay Initiative side: Greg Forbes, Kevin Lin, Max O’Krepki, and John Zhao provided support on portions of code. Rachel Galowich, Christian Giadolor, Greg Forbes, Julia Wagenfehr, Armelle Coutant, Abdul Aleem, Matt Nissen, and Dorian Lumarque participated in practicum projects at Stanford Future Bay that produced outcomes that are integrated into this work. Tyler Pullen reviewed the report and offered helpful revisions.

Lead Author: Derek Ouyang, derekouyang@gmail.com