The City of Gardena received two Beacon spotlight awards for greenhouse-gas reductions, city staff and the South Bay Cities Council of Governments told the City Council on Oct. 14: a Gold Spotlight Award for a 16% agency energy reduction and a Platinum Spotlight Award for a 24% reduction in community greenhouse-gas emissions during the measurement period cited (roughly 2012–2019).

Sean Fujioka, a project coordinator at the South Bay Cities COG, presented the city’s 2019 and 2020 greenhouse-gas emissions inventory and progress toward pieces of Gardena’s 2017 Climate Action Plan. Fujioka said the plan’s targets included a 15% reduction by 2020 and 49% by 2035; the city’s 2019 inventory exceeded the 2020 target and was on track for the 2035 goal.

Fujioka told the council the reductions stemmed from state policies (notably greater renewable generation and electric-vehicle adoption) and local energy-efficiency upgrades such as LED lighting and building improvements. He said the city reduced roughly 125,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from 2005 to 2019 — a figure the presentation framed as comparable to removing about 29,000 gasoline-powered vehicles from the road.

Mayor Sareta and council members congratulated staff and volunteers. City staff noted that the award recognizes both municipal operations and community-level actions (resident EV purchases and broader state policy changes that reduced the area’s grid emissions).

Fujioka recommended the city consider updating targets and the Climate Action Plan to align with the state’s post‑2019 ambition and use the inventory to pursue grants and future awards.