Clean Air Impact

Posted on August 30, 2023 by Danielle Killian

our clean air commitment protects our health and yours

October 2023. By Cassy Aoyagi: As the first landscaper serving LA County to be affirmed as a Zero Emissions Landscaper by the California Air Resources Board, we continually look for ways to take our clean air performance to the next level. Each year, we take the Coalition for Clean Air‘s Clean Air Pledge and look for next steps and new ways to protect the health of our teams, our clients, and all Angelenos.

Here’s an update on our clean air impacts.

Equipment

We are early adopters of clean air equipment.

New EVs+Infrastructure: We have begun replacing our fleet with electric vehicles. Watch for our new Ford Transit and Ford Lightening! To support our new vehicles, we’ve also installed clean air infrastructure.

Closed Truck Beds: The refuse and green waste we remove from gardens is transported in fully enclosed trucks – nothing escapes to dust your car or the air of LA.

Electric Equipment: Where power is necessary, we’ve long used all-electric equipment. Replacing just one blower saves the pollution of a 2400 mile drive each day. It also saves the team member operating that equipment from directly inhaling its emissions.

Practices

While equipment tends to catch eyes, our day-to-day practices may have even greater impact.

Routes+Schedules: Whether driving EVs or standard vehicles, our routing saves vehicle miles traveled, and our schedules minimize our time on the road. Both maximize our clean air impacts.

People Power: We’ve always preferenced people powered actions over power equipment. You’ll see us sweeping, raking, clipping, pulling and structural pruning where others mow, blow, weed-wack, and chain saw. This doesn’t just save the air, it keeps foliage healthier and means we can come and go without disturbing a bird’s nest, sleeping baby or a Zoom meeting!

Sustainable Landscapes: There is inherent good in our profession. Trees and foliage, composting, and growing food locally all help clean the air. We spend our days providing these assets! It’s important that, even when we maintain non-native foliage, we stick to our commitment of adding no chemical pesticides or fertilizers. While we usually speak about the water-quality saving benefits of this practice, this also keeps toxins from the air.

Wildfire Defense: With every Fountain, Pampas and Mexican Feather Grass we remove, with every Zone 0 and defensible landscape we build, We Save LA a little fire risk. This impact may be the hardest for us to quantify – it is also among the most important of our clean air contributions.

Industry Influence: We advocate for industry change every chance we get. We want each landscaper to understand just how important clean air actions are to their health as well as the health of our habitats.

Advocacy+Education: How LA looks, how healthy and safe we are in 2050 comes down to the landscaping decisions Angelenos make right now. We walk our values, but it’s important to talk them too. We educate and encourage every landscaping consumer, including those who do their own landscaping to consider the impacts of landscaping choices on LA’s health and resilience. We encourage builders, developers and planners to hold space for nature and make wise landscaping descisions.

We believe Angelenos make our own luck. Our clean air commitment is just one of the ways We Save LA. Join us? Take the Clean Air Pledge.

Sources and Resources

California Air Resources Board (CARB)
CARB: Health Impacts of Leaf Blowers
CARB: Reports and Information on Zero Emissions Landscape Equipment
Coalition for Clean Air
Clean Air Day
South Coast AQMD Equipment Rebates
Be Good to Your Heart
Make Our Own Luck

Think Home First

Posted on August 16, 2023 by Danielle Killian

Before you ask us for a fire defensive landscape, please harden your home

September 2023. By Cassy Aoyagi: Alongside Hawaii’s losses weighing heavy on hearts, we see amplified fire fear. That’s natural. Yet, fear often clouds our ability to see and take the most productive action.

When fear rises, people look out to the wild with trepidation and want to pave entire landscapes. That won’t save homes or lives. Thinking home first will. The fire scientists, fire fighters, and fire-defensive architects who have taught us to fear less have been sounding this warning for years. Fire Defensive Architect Amanda Cavallo perfectly defined our true problem:

From a built environment perspective, it’s important to understand that buildings and structures are the first thing to perish in a wildfire and provide the most fuel for a wildfire. We use materials in our building and construction that are flammable, chemical, synthetic, combustible and explosive.

Insurance research leads us to some calm, clear-eyed solutions.

The first of the 10 fire defensive actions we hope you’ll take is to think home first. That involves looking at where on your home embers could gain access to the interior or gather to build enough heat to ignite the exterior of your home. Cavallo added:

[Home fires] start because the worst impacts are due to wind blown embers that can travel for miles and land on roofs, get in through vents, and will burn a structure from the inside out. The biggest danger is to the home – that is where we need to start.

Here are highly effective home-first actions, from low-cost to high. (Yes, we’re being a bit sneaky here, as thinking home first involves a few actions.)

Maintenance: Block any spaces between roof and decking (“birdstopping) and in siding – we hear gorilla tape can work wonders in a pinch! Keep your roof, gutters and the base of your home free of debris.
Vents: Cover chimney and other vents with “spark arresting” mesh screens.
Gutters: Install non-combustible leaf guards. (Bonus: This will save rainy season maintenance too!)
Attached Fence/Gate: Add a metal plate where the gate attaches to the home. Replace wood gates with metal or composite. Avoid designs that could catch and hold embers.
Eves: Install soffits if you have an overhang. Install fire resistant (1-hour rating) soffits and fascia.
Doors: Add weather stripping to doors and shutters to sliding doors. Replace wooden garage doors, particularly if they are not solid-core.
Decks: Replace plastic, wood plastic and softwoods with hard woods and be sure to select sizes that comply with California building codes.
Windows + Skylights: Replace with fire resistant materials, tempered glass – this includes windows in doors!
Roofs: Re-roof with Class-A materials (e.g. composition, metal or tile)
Siding: Replace siding that could burn (wood) or melt (vinyl) with fire resistant materials such as brick, stone, or stucco, starting with the vertical six inches closest to the ground.

To get a sense of what this looks like, tour the model Fire Resilient Home designed by architect Clark Stevens as an educational tool for the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains and LA County Fire Department’s Forestry Division.

For a more detailed checklist and cost versus efficacy assessment, see the House Upgrade Section of DefensibleSpace.org. If you are will apply these insights to your home, don’t do it alone! If you live in Malibu, city inspectors will help you for free. In Simi Valley or the Santa Monica Mountains? The Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains will provide a Home Ignition Zone Evaluation for free – they will also train you in the evaluation technique if you aim to be a resource for your community.

Of course, all of this home-work will be much easier if the five feet around your home is ember resistant and clear of artwork, furnishings, toys, tools, wood piles, storage, and container gardens. We would be very happy to help you create this ember resistant Zone 0, which will be required for all those in high and very high fire sensitivity areas by January 2024. In a medium-high area? Let’s get ahead of things. We love you, and we want to know we’ve done all we can to keep you safe.