The World Business Academy The retail sector in Santa Barbara, particularly downtown, has been struggling. Santa Barbara retailers currently face a perfect storm due to recent local natural disasters that have added to the impact of e-commerce, national trends, neighborhood vacancies, Byzantine local regulations, and the high cost of doing business in the city. On […]
Santa Barbara
Upcoming Earth Day Focuses on Resiliency
Visit The Academy at the Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival April 21 and 22 at Alameda Park The World Business Academy urges all members of the public to celebrate Earth Day this year by learning something new and charting a course for action in your personal life. How are YOU going to be a part […]
A Sneak Peek Into Our Distributed Energy Future
The World Business Academy has joined with Clean Coalition, a non-profit organization with expertise in both policy advocacy and technical analysis, in a collaborative effort to survey solar potential for both south Santa Barbara and western Ventura counties. Utilizing Clean Coalition’s unique survey methodology, the Academy is identifying and mapping optimal county/municipal, commercial and industrial […]
SCE’s Energy RFP: Opportunity or Trap?
By Robert Perry, Director of Energy Research For renewable energy advocates, 2017 was a pretty good year. First, the Public Utilities and Energy commissions denied Southern California Edison’s proposed refurbishment of the Ellwood Power Station in Goleta and the construction of the Puente gas peaker plant in Oxnard. This decision is considered by the energy […]
Reviving Retail in Santa Barbara Community Meeting
Community Solutions to the ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Santa Barbara retailers currently face a perfect storm due to recent local natural disasters that have added to the impact of e-commerce, national trends, neighborhood vacancies, Byzantine local regulations, and the high cost of doing business in Santa Barbara. The World Business Academy’s Global Citizens Club convened a panel […]
Academy Featured in Local Magazine VOICE
Thinking Globally, Acting Locally If you missed the Friday, March 9 issue of the local Santa Barbara’s VOICE Magazine (AKA CASA Magazine), please check it out! We are thrilled to share that our very own Rinaldo Brutoco is on the cover of the weekly issue, which features a well-written and comprehensive article about The Academy, […]
Rebuilding Montecito Community Meeting
Global Citizens Club Meeting Explores Grid Resiliency in Montecito The Academy’s February 20th Global Citizens Club meeting Rebuilding Montecito: Pathways to a Resilient Future explored resiliency on a personal, community, and countywide level as we addressed the rebuilding of a community deeply affected by climate change. Following the Thomas Fire and Montecito landslides, we need to pursue solutions […]
Jerry Brown Summarizes 2017 Accomplishments
Who are we and what have we accomplished in the last year? Director of the Safe Energy Project Jerry Brown gives an overview of the work of the Academy for the past year, succinctly exploring the core mission and local collaborative successes and accomplishments throughout 2017. Did you miss our year in review? Read it here. […]
Climate Change in our Backyard
Santa Barbara has been the home of the World Business Academy for more than a decade, and as such, has been the hub of much of our project based work as we practice “think globally, act locally.” Over the past month, the global impacts of climate change have hit our local community harder and sooner […]
First Santa Barbara UN Association Peace Prize awarded to Rinaldo S. Brutoco
The Board of Directors, Staff, and family at the Academy would like to congratulate the World Business Academy’s founding president, Rinaldo S. Brutoco, who has been honored as the recipient of the inaugural 2017 Santa Barbara Peace Prize from the United Nations Association of Santa Barbara & Tri Counties. The United Nations Association (UNA) of […]
CPUC Rejects Ellwood Proposal in Favor of Renewable Energy
As we celebrate a victory for the families who live and work near the Ellwood natural gas peaker plant in Goleta, the World Business Academy also sees this decision as an opportunity to advance the larger end goal of developing a renewable, community-based distributed energy system in Santa Barbara. The Academy applauds the unanimous decision […]
Democratizing Power: Fossil Fuels to 100% Renewables
This presentation was given on December 1, 2015 by Rinaldo S. Brutoco at the Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life at UC Santa Barbara. You can download the slides by clicking here.
