Small business landscape professionals who would like to swap their gas-powered equipment for zero-emissions models have the chance to buy them for a lot less money. Starting Monday, as part of the state’s new Clean Off-Road Equipment Voucher Incentive Project, qualifying landscape workers will be able to use point-of-sale vouchers to purchase zero-emissions edgers, hedgers, string trimmers, saws, vacuums, leaf blowers and other equipment from a list of approved dealers.
“Professional landscapers often operate on very tight profit margins and can find it challenging to upgrade to new technology,” CALSTART Lead Project Manager Jacob Whitson said in a statement. The 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.”
California CORE, as the program is known, has a website that lists the makes and models that are eligible for the incentives, as well as the dealers that are selling them with the state vouchers.
More than 300 pieces of equipment are eligible for the vouchers with incentives that range from $80 off a 2-amp charger that retails for $115 to $1,155 off a rechargeable battery that would otherwise cost $1,650.
Gas-powered lawnmowers, leaf blowers and other landscaping equipment produce up to 5% of the country’s air pollution, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“This new cleaner, quieter equipment eliminates exposure to harmful fumes for the professionals operating these machines, and for anyone nearby,” California Air Resources Board Mobile Source Control Division Chief Sydney Vergis said in a statement.