January 2024

Welcome to the PACE Food Service newsletter!

Each month, we share resources to help food businesses in the City of Boulder save money, promote environmental health, and improve climate impact and sustainability.

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Happy New Year from PACE!

2023 was a big year for our beloved PACE community, with our advisors supporting nearly 350 projects across the county. Behind the scenes, we also spent a lot of time developing and improving programs to better support Boulder County businesses, and we are looking forward to bringing these programs to you in the coming year.

Our focus for 2024? Getting off fossil fuels.

While Boulder County utilities are working hard to move our electric grid to renewable sources (Xcel is targeting 80% renewables by 2030 and 100% by 2050; Platte River Power Authority is even more ambitious with a target of 100% renewable energy by 2030), we at PACE are focusing on getting our building stock up-to-snuff, maximizing energy efficiency and helping you ditch fossil-fuel-powered equipment in favor of electric alternatives.

We want to make this process as easy as possible for our business community, so keep your eyes peeled for exciting new incentive and programming announcements coming later this month. We hope you can make it your new year’s resolution to work with us on a more sustainable future.

Thank you so much to the many, many businesses, contractors, and partners we’ve worked with over the last 30 years--we look forward to many more years of work together. Take good care, and we hope to see you soon!

Elizabeth French

PACE Program Manager 

As of January 1, retail food establishments cannot provide Styrofoam (expanded polystyrene) containers for ready-to-eat food. Businesses that purchased Styrofoam products before January 1, 2024, may use those specific supplies until depleted.

The city may charge fines for violations, with increasing severity for repeat offenses. Find more details from the Colorado General Assembly here.

For opportunities to switch to reusables, please reach out to your PACE advisor at info@pacepartners.com.

Does your company know what to say when asked about your carbon emissions? Do you have a strategy for managing climate change risks?

The Climate Action for Business Certificate from the University of Colorado Boulder offers instruction for building a strategic climate action plan with the Project Drawdown framework. The course includes an introduction to greenhouse gas protocols, science-based targets, CDP (formerly, the Carbon Disclosure Project), and TCFD (Task Force on climate-related Financial Disclosures).

This session will take place over two half-days on February 5 and 6, over Zoom. The course is priced at $699.

Watts@Work, Drive Clean Colorado's newest campaign, is designed to lower barriers to installing EV chargers at businesses and other workplaces across the state. On-site EV charging is a great employee benefit that is growing in demand, and Drive Clean Colorado is here with resources like advising, grant assistance, and more to help your workplace join the growing EV-charging network. Learn more about Watts@Work here.

Starting in January 2025, linear and compact fluorescent lamps will be largely banned from sale in the state of Colorado due to the Clean Lighting Act. This means that lighting incentives to replace old lighting with LED alternatives for free or reduced cost may start to go away.

Contact your PACE advisor soon to see if you qualify for programs like Xcel Energy’s LED Tube Replacement, which provides free replacement and disposal of certain old tube lighting, as well as install of replacement LEDs. Reach us at info@PACEpartners.com or 303-786-7223.