Menlo Spark

Menlo Spark began when a small group of community members with diverse interests and experience joined together to explore opportunities to promote long-term economic vitality, equity, and quality of life in Menlo Park while addressing the urgent threat of climate change. We believe that Menlo Park, with its highly engaged residents and unique resources in the heart of Silicon Valley, can be a national leader in sustainability and climate action.  

Climate change may be the greatest challenge of our time, with diminished snowpack, greater wildfires, more intense storms, sea levels rising and other impacts, but there is so much that we can do together as a community to address this challenge.  As a community, we can support alternatives to driving that make it easier for people to get around without a car, bring more solar power to lower energy bills and work together towards low carbon buildings. By being an early leader in sustainability, Menlo Park can create an incubator for innovation and ease our inevitable transition to a zero-carbon economy.  

Menlo Spark is working to make this a reality. Since our launch in May 2015, we have accomplished the following:

* Sustainability partnership with Facebook. Our first project is installing solar power on low-income homes in Belle Haven.

* Clean Power through Community Choice Energy.  We have worked with the City and stakeholders to stake a path to 100% renewable grid power to Menlo Park at no additional cost, with the City of Menlo Park recently voting to join “Peninsula Clean Energy”. (See this article)

 * Electric Vehicle Expo: Together with the City of Menlo Park and others we co-sponsored this event with over 100 test drives of electric cars, bikes and scooters.

* Smart City Planning and Alternatives to Driving: Working with a broad range of stakeholders we have supported integration of sustainability measures into Menlo Park’s General Plan Update, development of new electric shuttle bus service, and piloting of safe new bike lanes along key routes.

* Moving the Needle with Novel Approaches: We have formed a partnership with the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) for top technical and policy support based on their signature data-driven, innovative approaches.

The technical solutions necessary to achieve climate neutrality already exist, or are rapidly being developed.  By helping to weave these steps together into a network of projects and initiatives in the city, Menlo Spark is supporting a fast track of progress towards the ultimate goal of zero carbon. Please join us!