LEED professionals in public service find shared goals among diverse communities

Three local government leaders from across the U.S. share their perspectives.

Feature image: LEED Fellow and LEED BD+C Eden Brukman with the team of the San Diego Office of Sustainability and Environmental Justice. Photo courtesy of Eden Brukman.

A sustainable future in which people and the environment thrive requires leadership and action at both the individual project scale and the large scale. For a region to meet ambitious climate targets, public servants must reach across different communities and business sectors to garner ideas and participation. By focusing on shared benefits and documenting outcomes, three LEED professionals and local government leaders are showing what's possible when preconceptions are jettisoned and diverse stakeholders come together.

Sumedha Rao: Defying expectations

When LEED AP BD+C Sumedha Rao introduces herself as the executive director for the Mayor's Office of Sustainability with the Louisville Metro Government in Kentucky, she knows what some people might think: Environmental progress might be tough in a state with a historically coal-based economy. Those people might be surprised to learn, though, that the city of 620,000-plus residents has an emissions reduction plan to achieve net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2040 and has earned numerous sustainability accolades, including LEED for Cities certification at the Silver level.

Although Rao began her career as a sustainable building consultant, she aspired to drive climate action on a city scale. With an undergraduate degree in environmental science and a graduate degree in sustainability science with a concentration in urban sustainability, she volunteered on the inaugural LEED for Cities and Communities advisory committee.

When she entered the public sector in 2021, she had the chance to experience the fruits of her committee's efforts by seeing through Louisville's pursuit of LEED Silver. The certification process helped her grow into her role, engage with different municipal departments and gauge their willingness to reduce their environmental impact. "It was a good way to get the lay of the land," Rao says.

Today, Rao and her team of four spend much of their time on advocacy. In Louisville, Rao says, many of the typical levers a city might deploy to reduce its emissions are out of its control; for example, utilities and the building code are regulated at the state level. As a result, instead of the proverbial sticks, she says, "we have to use carrots more." For example, Louisville offers discounted rates on solar panels, a $1 per square foot incentive for cool roofs and a PACE program for financing energy efficiency improvements. A green bank is on the horizon.

Eighty percent of the savings resulting from the city's energy efficiency measures-totaling about $3 million since 2021-are reinvested for future sustainability initiatives, Rao says. Though her office's current efforts are focused on energy, Rao hopes to adopt more holistic measures and systemwide modifications, such as those outlined in the LEED for Cities and Communities framework. For example, she has held initial conversations with the city's haulers on the importance of tracking and minimizing construction waste.

Rao has a long to-do list. In the near term, she wants to create case studies of public projects to encourage more sustainable private development. A recent large formula grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will help Louisville develop an actionable road map to achieve its goal of cutting emissions by half by 2030.

That will set the city on course for its long-term objective. "In 25 years, we're going to be a net zero community, and everyone will want to hear about how we did it," Rao says. "I would like us to have been creative, collaborative and bold. I want to be glad that we did not assume that the goal was too ambitious, and that we just did the work to get there."

Left to right: LEED AP BD+C Sumedha Rao, executive director for the Mayor's Office of Sustainability with the Louisville Metro Government (photo credit: Dan Dry with Price Weber); LEED AP O+M Jeremy Caron, sustainability program manager for the City of Des Moines (photo credit: Christine Reinders-Caron, LEED AP BD+C); and LEED Fellow and LEED BD+C Eden Brukman, chief sustainability officer of the San Diego County Office of Sustainability and Environmental Justice (photo courtesy of Eden Brukman).

Jeremy Caron: Leading with pragmatism

LEED AP O+M Jeremy Caron currently serves as the sustainability program manager for the City of Des Moines, Iowa, but he first began overseeing environmental initiatives for the public sector in Boston, where he managed the LEED certification process for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' high-performance building portfolio. "I helped design and construction teams identify critical project management and best practices that should be applied to all of our new construction projects and existing facilities," he says.

Since earning his LEED credential in 2015, Caron has used his expertise to inform how buildings and communities are designed, built and maintained. "We have a responsibility to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars and to protect our investments for future generations," he says. "Fundamentally, we are place makers, creating spaces where people want to spend time, whether for work, recreation or living."

In 2020, Caron began his role in Des Moines, which has a communitywide climate action and adaptation plan called Adapt DSM. Its goals include reducing GHG emissions by 45% by 2030, achieving 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035 and reaching net zero emissions by 2050. Des Moines, however, faces several challenges that may sound familiar to other city leaders: "Tightening budgets, ordinances that do not align with our goals and strategies, and incentive programs that reward mediocre projects all hold us back," he says. "In addition, prohibitive legislation that limits local control is common in several Midwestern states. This can limit our flexibility to move certain best practices forward that have been adopted elsewhere for many years."

The city has begun updating ordinances and positioning programs and incentives to align with its broader goals, as well as encouraging the private sector to adopt best practices. LEED for Cities and Communities offers a framework for identifying areas for improvement and evaluating progress, Caron says. "We've discovered fantastic work other departments and community partners are doing that we were not aware of previously."

Though many Iowa leaders have been critical of important national policies, advancing sustainability is not a new concept for the state. "Iowa has been leading with a conservation mindset for generations," he says. "It's important not to lose sight of that history." Similar to how individuals and communities actively seek to reduce financial, health and safety risks, he notes, "managing for sustainability and climate resilience is about managing and mitigating risk."

Caron envisions Des Moines becoming a vibrant, resilient, just and equitable community that meets its climate goals with guidance from Adapt DSM and third-party certification systems like LEED. "I have no doubt the sustainability field and our communities will look different in the future," he says, "but it's up to us, as LEED practitioners, to transfer our knowledge and skill sets to the next generation of leaders."

Eden Brukman: Building on a legacy

An active volunteer with USGBC since 2003, LEED Fellow and LEED BD+C Eden Brukman is no stranger to the green building community. She is, however, just a little over a year into her role as chief sustainability officer of the San Diego County Office of Sustainability and Environmental Justice, where she and her team of 12 staff members are helping the region reduce its carbon emissions and address environmental and health disparities in traditionally underserved areas. As the fifth largest county in the country, Brukman says, San Diego has 18 incorporated cities and the most tribal communities of any county. It is aiming to cut its operational carbon emissions by 90% by 2030, according to its Zero Carbon Portfolio Plan.

From working on one of the earliest LEED-certified projects in California to spending decades in sustainability leadership, Brukman has learned "how many ways there are to approach green buildings-and to exceed expectations." LEED provides a system for achieving sustainable design in a manner that respects local culture and the sense of place. "Even though people sometimes refer to LEED as a checklist," Brukman says, "it's not that reductive."

She values the collaborative process that achieving LEED certification requires. "Things that one person might think are easy may seem insurmountable to another," she says. "By us all coming together, we are able to find new ways to get things done."

She views LEED for Cities and Communities as a powerful tool for jurisdictions to identify, document and communicate the green measures they are taking, particularly during the early stages of their efforts. For jurisdictions well on their way to carbon neutrality, she believes LEED helps market their accomplishments. When the public sees a LEED plaque on a building, they understand its significance, Brukman says. "It's not a shorthand in an exclusive language anymore."

The state of California, which is targeting carbon neutrality by 2045, is considered a leader in climate and energy initiatives. However, Brukman says, the state comprises diverse interests. The assumption that California and its jurisdictions have everything figured out can, in fact, hinder progress. "We still need support to move forward and advance our goals," Brukman notes. "Even if we were uniformly successful in every policy, program and practice, we have a long to go-and we have [only] 20 years."

In the short term, Brukman hopes she and her team can build a foundation of trust with diverse partners and advance community-identified and community-driven priorities to address climate change within San Diego County. Her office is simultaneously tasked with working with other jurisdictions to help align model codes and sustainability policies and programs. Practitioners are not limited to working within the jurisdictional boundaries, she notes, "so it would be helpful for us to have consistency in language, intention, requirements and documentation."

Her long-term vision is similarly ambitious: alleviating completely the devastating realities of climate change that have systematically burdened "communities that have been most impacted by our social and political constructs," Brukman says. "It is critical for us all to work together to eliminate it."

For professionals looking to become part of the equation, Brukman recommends first learning the values and culture of those whom they want to help and then engaging when the timing is appropriate. "Sometimes you need an invitation, but most of the time, we just need to show up and support each other," she says. "We're not going to make things happen alone."

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