Citizens Sustainability Advisory Committee (CSAC)
2025 Year-End Report
GOAL 1: Support City Staff in promoting and implementing the City's Updated Climate Action Plan (CAP).
Work with City staff to develop and administer pilot programs to test the "Community-Based Social Marketing" concept to help achieve behavioral changes to implement Year One CAP Initiatives.
Continue to seek creative, non-traditional ways to market sustainability to the Community.
Seek opportunities to align the Community with the goals of the City's Climate Action Plan by continuing to support staff in accomplishing activities in the CAP Implementation Plan.
Continue to increase community members' knowledge of sustainability topics.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
Committee members continue to learn about Community-Based Social Marketing and have achieved a better understanding of the psychology around encouraging sustainable action.
The Committee developed a pilot solar permit campaign that sent both emails and mailed flyers. This action addresses these actions in the City's Climate Action Plan 2024 Update:
oE-W.1.1.2: Promote appliance rebate programs offered by Peninsula Clean Energy (PCE), PG&E, and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD).
oE-W.2.2.5: Promote awareness and understanding of electrification options to the construction industry and the community through education, outreach, and community partners.
oE-W.2.2.2: Develop and implement a community-wide education and outreach campaign to provide information, incentives, benefits, and technical support for building electrification to increase voluntary adoption of all-electric technologies.
Committee members continued to educate the Community about electrification at City events, including Earth Day, and at their popular booth at Summer Days.
GOAL 2: Continue to seek out and promote sustainability best practices to the Foster City Community.
Organize and participate in community events like Earth Day and Clean Air Day. Promote sustainability initiatives to the business community. Seek collaborations with the Youth Advisory Committee and Parks and Recreation Committee members.
Continue to seek partnerships with local sustainability organizations. Continue developing blog posts to share sustainability best practices. Continue community outreach and engagement activities to help identify local community sustainability champions and advocates.
Continue Committee and personal sustainability goals.
Develop metrics for success.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
Earth Day
o400+ attendees learned about Earth Day from 14 different vendors, including San Mateo Office of Sustainability, Peninsula Clean Energy, and Recology
oDozens of children participated in the Trash-to-Art Contest oContinued to strengthen the partnership with the Foster City Library, which hosted and promoted the event
4th of July (Pancake Breakfast)
oWorked with Organizers to reduce single-use and bulk items where possible and encourage increased recycling and composting
oStrengthened partnerships with/Rotary and Foster City scouts Summer Days
oCSAC Booth for two days and connected with hundreds of community members
oTrash Sorting Game w/ earth-friendly prizes
COMMITTEE WORK:
The Committee members selected a Chair and a Co-Chair for 2025 The Committee welcomed two new resident members and one small business member
The Committee continued its subcommittee work in the following areas:
oCommunity Engagement
Developed two separate electrification surveys
oEvents
Planned and managed ALL CSAC events, including Earth Day and Summer Days
Created best practices for future events
Developed new partnerships with local sustainability groups oBusiness
Strengthened the relationship with San Mateo County's Green Business Program
Committee members also conducted significant work outside of committee meetings to support sustainability:
oCommittee Chair Goel: Since she began using Ridwell, her family's landfill waste has now almost completely disappeared. She switched to a less carcinogenic laundry detergent and is looking for ways to reduce bleach use. Her salon business reached the highest Green Business level in San Mateo County.
oCommunity Vice-Chair Mitra: She delivered a statewide speech on climate change and its impacts on women's health at the AAUW 2025 Speech Trek Competition, raising awareness of this critical issue. She also joined the Youth Climate Ambassadors Leadership Program, leading community projects in San Mateo County to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and partnered with Committee Chair Goel to help Baybasi incorporate more sustainable practices into their 2025 Durga Puja event. In addition, Vice Chair Mitra became the committee's liaison to the Youth Advisory Committee.
oCommittee Member Beglinger: She actively advanced environmental stewardship by volunteering with Our City Forest and the Pacific Beach Coalition to restore native habitats, organizing Earth Day cleanups along the Bay Trail at Oyster Point, and hosting a Yoga Hike & Flow Earth Day fundraiser for the Yosemite Conservancy. She continued to adopt zero- waste practices at home, reduced her flight activity by half compared to 2024, and deepened her commitment to environmental policy by engaging with environmental advocacy groups and activism. She also incorporated sustainability into her wedding by planning an eco-conscious elopement in Redwood National Park.
oCommittee Member Estalilla: He joined the Business Subcommittee and, with Chair Goel and Committee Member Beglinger, drafted a working roadmap to guide sustainable practices for local enterprises and outline steps to engage businesses in our city to align with our Climate Action Plan (CAP). Also created a working doc for youth engagement, collaborating with our Vice Chair Mitra to ensure Foster City’s next generation is actively involved in advancing sustainability initiatives and moving forward our CAP. He also became a SPUR Visionary sustaining member in 2025 and dedicated both resources and time to advancing equitable, long-term sustainability policies across the Bay Area. I also supported and became a sustaining member of organizations, including the Sierra Club – Loma Prieta Chapter, Sustainable San Mateo County, and Peninsula for Everyone. I also supported the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County as part of regional conversations on housing, equity, and environmental resilience. As a resident, along with my wife and three kids, we were able to reduce our overall household waste and energy usage by 1/3 and are continuing to find ways to improve on our 2025 usage. oCommittee Member Huo: He attended a variety of academic conferences/symposiums on topics such as Environmental Justice through the Lens of Indigenous Peoples, the Stanford Global Development Postdoctoral Fellows Conference, and the Stanford Food Summit.
Additionally, he participated in the 15 th annual Silicon Valley Bike Summit and Foster City's Community Bike Ride. He was also the CSAC liaison to the Parks Master Plan project. He volunteered at the City's Earth Day event and developed the sustainability sticker prize.
oCommunity Member Yan: She wrote and published a blog post on sustainable recycling, created a local recycling resource sheet for Foster City residents, created a shareable CSAC resource folder with printable flyers and resources for residents, and advocated for sustainable energy and available tax benefits to residents. Personally switched from a gas car to an EV.
Former members also had significant sustainability accomplishments in 2025 oFormer Committee Member Ron Haupt continued to work with the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California to develop a residential disaster/earthquake awareness training element that could be incorporated into CERT and made available to first responders. As a timed- out Committee Member, Haupt will continue CSAC involvement, attending meetings and investigating how a "Friends of Foster City Sustainability" activity might work.
oFormer Committee Member Marah Curry replaced her gas water heater with an electric heat pump water heater.
oFormer Committee Member Sid Gogi attended San Mateo High School Green Team meetings, where he gave feedback and participated in discussions on various Earth Day-related activities that were being planned for the school's Earth Week. He also attended a Youth Climate Rally in San Mateo Central Park, became a vegetarian for both ethical and environmental reasons, and was accepted into Stanford University, where he's studying public policy and sustainability.
oCommittee Member Nilofer Motiwala installed solar and battery storage at her home in Foster City, helped a school in San Mateo obtain solar energy, and collaborated with organizations such as Permit Power to reduce permitting time and cost barriers for solar installation. She also led community cleanups in Foster City with the Pacific Beach Coalition, maintained her Ridwell membership to divert hard-to-recycle items from the landfill, and continued loaning out reusable water dispensers, plates, and silverware for community events to help eliminate the need for single-use items.