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Strategic Plan
Overview and Scope

Air District Responsibilities

The Air District is responsible for regulating stationary sources of air pollution in the San Francisco Bay Area. We pass and enforce a wide variety of regulations on industries, businesses, and activities, from wood burning in fireplaces to refining fossil fuels, to ensure air pollution is minimized. We also distribute over $150 million in state and federal incentive funding every year to reduce air pollution from mobile sources, such as cars, trucks, school buses, port and construction equipment, lawn and garden equipment, and wood-burning stoves and fireplaces. To learn more about the Air District, please visit our Main Site.

2024-2029 Strategic Plan Scope

Our responsibilities are foundational to our efforts to reduce air pollution, protect people’s health and mitigate climate change. The 2024-2029 Strategic Plan is about how we will transform this work to address air quality issues more effectively, with a focus on communities most overburdened by air pollution. It is also about how we will transform our organization to align more closely with our core values of environmental justice, equity, integrity, partnership, transparency, and trust. Read more about the Strategic Plan Scope.

“We now know community, environmental justice, and equity must be central to our work in the coming years and decades.”

-- Bay Area Air District

Timeline

2017

State Law Inspires Community Partnership

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In September 2017, a new state law, Assembly Bill 617, fundamentally changed how local air districts approach air quality planning. The law requires local air districts to partner with communities to develop plans for monitoring and reducing pollution in their neighborhoods.

Communities selected for partnership are those that have relatively higher levels of air pollution than the rest of the Bay Area, along with health vulnerabilities, such as higher asthma rates, cardiovascular disease, and cancer risk. Read more.

2021

Council Lifts Community Voice in Decision-Making

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The Air District’s Community Advisory Council, composed of 17 community leaders and experts who live or work in communities overburdened by local air pollution, was formed in 2021.

The council makes recommendations to the Air District on equity and environmental justice matters to improve air quality in all communities, prioritizing communities most impacted by air pollution. Read more about the Community Advisory Council.

2023-24

Planning for change, together

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The 2024-2029 Strategic Plan was developed through a collaborative process with community leaders, Air District employees, the Board of Directors and Community Advisory Council members, representatives from regulated industries, and our government and non-government partners.  Read more about the development of the 2024-2029 Strategic Plan.

Through our outreach, we learned that people value the Air District’s renewed focus on environmental justice and community engagement. They appreciate our knowledge and technical expertise, and our emphasis on science. Read more about the input to the 2024-2029 Strategic Plan.

The plan includes:

  • An updated mission: The Air District improves air quality to protect public health, reduce historical and current environmental inequities, and mitigate climate change.
  • Updated core values: Environmental justice, Equity, Integrity, Partnership, Transparency, and Trust.
  • A 5-year vision: Over the next 5 years, the Air District will transform its workforce, operations, community engagement, and programs to improve air quality, increase public trust, and demonstrate leadership in equity-centered environmental stewardship.