CARB – Discounted ZEV Landscape Equipment Offered

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Qualified small business landscape professionals starting today can purchase discounted zero-emission lawn mowers, blowers and other landscape equipment through a new category of funding offered through the California Air Resources Board’s Clean Off-Road Equipment Voucher Incentive Project (CORE).* Administered by CALSTART, the CORE program’s new funding category has an allocation of more than $27 million of voucher funds for professional landscape services operated by small businesses or sole proprietors, CARB said in a release.

Electric versions of lawn mowers and blowers will be welcomed in residential areas since the gasoline powered versions are noisy and constitute an unhealthy noise pollution blight  in AutoInformed’s view. CARB first announced this new funding in October.

“Professional landscapers often operate on very tight profit margins and can find it challenging to upgrade to new technology,” said Jacob Whitson, CALSTART’s lead project manager, “CORE’s new landscape voucher incentives will allow them to more easily adopt zero-emission professional equipment for their businesses, while in turn encouraging manufacturers to expand their offerings in this market.”

Equipment purchasers can request vouchers for the following types of landscape equipment starting today, 7 November 2022:

• Edgers
• Hedgers
• String trimmers
• Chainsaws
• Pole saws
• Vacuums
• Handheld leaf blowers
• Backpack leaf blowers
• Walk-behind mowers
• Ride-on/Stand-ride mowers
• Batteries
• Chargers
• Power management equipment

CORE’s website has a list of approved zero-emission landscape service equipment manufacturers and a list of approved dealers throughout California and other states. To be considered for voucher eligibility, small businesses must offer landscape services that help repair, install, or subcontract the development of landscape systems and facilities for public and private gardens and other areas that are designed to aesthetically, architecturally, horticulturally, or functionally improve the grounds within or surrounding a structure or a tract or plot of land. Additionally, the business must be independently owned and operated with a principal office located in California. Finally, the company must have 100 or fewer employees and average annual gross receipts of $15 million or less over the previous three years.

*CORE is part of California Climate Investments, a statewide initiative that puts billions of cap-and-trade dollars to work reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening the economy, improving public health and the environment, and providing meaningful benefits to the most disadvantaged communities, low-income communities, and low-income households.