Urban Green Council
The mission of Urban Green Council is to decarbonize buildings for healthy and resilient communities.
Policy Intern
-
Research and analyze issues affecting Urban Green’s policy initiatives, including building retrofits, building electrification and carbon trading
Conduct literature reviews and write summaries/policy memos
Draft presentations and issue briefs
Attend public hearings and produce meeting minutes
Examine raw data and perform spreadsheet analyses
Communicate findings to greater team simply and effectively
-
Cross-functional collaboration with research and communications teams on research and design, communication of ideas combining policy and data visualization, deep understanding of how environmental justice communities are affected by energy infrastructure
Ability to distill information into concise summaries, inventory management of research documents, ability to draw connections between multiple topics and identify levers for policy movement, project management, and synthesis of multiple stakeholders’ inputs into a final product
Knowledge of legislative bodies and their organizational structure within New York City and New York State, designing a document that will be used by multiple teammates from different backgrounds, an understanding of how policy is shaped and moved by authoritative powers
-
Translating policy language into language better suited for wider audiences, illustrating key concepts with visuals, application of learning data visualization tools, familiarity with key NYC building and energy datasets including PLUTO and NYC benchmarking dataset, and data analysis/synthesis to be shared publicly and to inform NYC policymaking on benchmarking
Gain understanding of evolving past work into a new phase, summarize important details from Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) meetings, learn how to think outside the box with how new data resources can further research
Support for ongoing Local Law 97 work. LL97 work will include LL97 rules webinar, submitting comments as part of the public comment process, and responding to questions.
Urban Green Council Gala 2022
Key Projects
Key Projects
Exploring Equitable Electrification.
I designed data visualizations and content input for this article highlighting how environmental justice communities are affected by energy infrastructure, particularly electrical grid capacity in historically disinvested neighborhoods.
This publication involved cross-functional collaboration for research, design, and policy with the key output being a communication of ideas combining policy and data visualization.
This map uses NYC Open Data, specifically the PLUTO data set, to map a potential next phase in expanding Local Law 84/133 to a group of buildings not yet covered by LL84.
I created this map to shows buildings between 10,001 SF and 25,000 SF in New York City (NYC) and where they are clustered in NYC. This visualization was used to communicate with councilmembers and other key figures in policymaking.
As NYC aims to reach its net zero greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) emissions goal by 2040, getting all buildings within the city's portfolio to comply with energy benchmarking under Local Law 84/133 will be the first step in phasing out fossil fuels in buildings. Signed into law in 2009 as part of a larger package of energy laws known as the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan. The law originally applied to New York City buildings larger than 50,000 sf, and was in 2016 expanded under Local Law 133 to cover NYC buildings larger than 25,000 sf. The law requires owners and managers to report their building’s energy usage to the City of New York on a yearly basis.
Energy Benchmarking Initiatives
Furthering the groundwork of Local Laws 84 & 87, I co-authored, produced research and created data visualizations that will educate the people of New York and serve as documents for convening and advocacy around benchmarking building data.
Urban Green Council put out the groundbreaking report on building audit and benchmarking data In partnership with the New York City Mayor’s Office of Sustainability and the NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress. This report created the first comprehensive, official report that revealed the systems, fuel types and materials used in thousands of NYC buildings.
Local Law 97 Initiatives
Urban Green Council is known for producing high quality reports incorporating data and policy recommendations for sustainable solutions in New York’s building sector. It is an honor to support their design evolution with new Local Law 97 data visualizations.