Access Clean California
Little Universe
Menu
Access Clean California
Access Clean CA is a project funded by the California Air Resources Board and California Climate Investments, and administered by non-profit partner Grid Alternatives.
The Problem
California has an overwhelming array of clean energy and transportation programs that benefit disadvantaged and front-line communities, each with their own marketing and outreach campaigns, application processes, and eligibility requirements.A study commissioned by the state in 2016 identified several barriers to access to these programs, including lack of awareness, affordability, and lack of coordination among programs. It’s far too difficult to figure out what you might qualify for, and even more difficult to apply and receive those benefits.
The Solution
Access Clean CA was created to address these barriers, and Little Universe has partnered with Access Clean CA to streamline the pathway to clean energy incentives and benefits by bringing California’s climate programs together in a simple, intuitive web platform and seamless application experience called the Access Clean CA Benefits Finder.
Our Approach
The project is technically complex, but perhaps even moreso, it is politically complex. It is a large scale government-backed technology initiative with a complex set of stakeholders including statewide and regional government agencies, energy utilities, nonprofits, and community-based organizations.We recognized immediately that while the client had a powerful and crystal clear vision of how Access Clean CA could empower low-income communities in California, there were still many unanswered questions about how the Benefits Finder could and should deliver on that vision. We also saw a product in need of many rounds of rapid iteration and robust pathways for ongoing user and stakeholder feedback, and a relatively tight timeline to launch and scale.
We applied our tenets for successful products throughout this project.
1
Agile Development and Project Management
2
Full-cycle Stakeholder Engagement
3
Capacity Building and Long Term Thinking
4
Transparent Pricing and Incredible Value
5
Centering Equity
Not just shipping code
Our job is not just to ship code, but to engage stakeholders and users in an inclusive design process, and to create the technical integrations that enable us to streamline processes across dozens of programs.
Our Contribution
Technical audit and roadmapGlobal code refactorAgile product and design improvementsDesigned, built, and shipped Income Verification
The Results
300%Increase in average page load speed.Resulting in more accessible applications.
120sFor a user to determine benefits eligibility.Matching users with eligible benefits, faster.
50%Conversion rate to income verification.Widening access at scale.
A model to follow
The project has been heralded as a model for making climate equity programs accessible, and was mentioned in the Biden-Harris Climate Plan as a model for new federal programs as the Biden Administration centers equity in their response to the Climate Crisis.
Three Takeaways
If you don’t already know exactly what you need to build and how to build it, agile is the fastest, cheapest way to innovate - even for large-scale government technology projects.
Understanding and engaging with stakeholder politics and power are a critical part of the design process, not separate from it.
If you want to move fast, building trust is at least as important as shipping code.