City staff presented the first administrative update to Climate Smart San José since its 2018 adoption, and the City Council accepted the update on Dec. 2 while approving a related pilot program to accelerate residential heat-pump installations.

The update preserves the plan's long-term goals — including a communitywide carbon neutrality objective for 2030 — and streamlines metrics to focus on high-impact actions. Staff said the city is not on track to meet the 2030 neutrality goal and recommended department-level annual work plans to align actions, budgets and reporting. The presentation highlighted inventory data showing the city's two largest sources of greenhouse-gas emissions are transportation (about 51%) and gas for building operations (about 21%).

As part of the climate agenda, staff evaluated two pilot incentives: (1) a contractor incentive offering $1,000 to 100 local contractors for their first six heat-pump installs (pilot cost: $100,000) aimed at growing installer capacity; and (2) a point-of-sale incentive up to $1,500 for commercial landscaping companies to buy electric leaf blowers. Staff recommended the contractor-incentive pilot and advised against the leaf-blower incentive because the city found the leaf-blower program would produce low emissions reductions relative to cost, require substantial staff time and offer weak market uptake.

In public comment many speakers — neighborhood advocates, climate partners and councilmembers — voiced support for the contractor pilot and urged continued outreach to communities of equity. Councilmembers asked about timing, savings estimates and whether the transaction reduces future procurement flexibility; staff said savings would begin to accrue shortly after closing and that assigning only part of the city's PPA rights helps preserve future flexibility.

The council approved the contractor incentive pilot and accepted the Climate Smart update; it also unanimously rejected the leaf-blower point-of-sale incentive for now.