Kettering has appointed the city’s first sustainability manager, Dawn Kirchner.
Her role will be critical in advancing Kettering’s sustainability initiatives and developing environmental strategies, the city said in its newsletter.
WYSO’s environment reporter Adriana Martinez-Smiley spoke with Kirchner to learn what she hopes to accomplish in this position.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Dawn Kirchner: I started in 2021 as the (city’s) volunteer administrator. My background is actually in biology and environmental sciences. So I worked in the Aquatic Toxicology lab as an undergrad at Wright State. I was accepted as a graduate student and stayed on for my master's degree there.
Part of my big personal goal is to educate the public and improve public understanding of science.
It was a natural transition to work with the city coordinating their volunteer program, and it was a great way to get acquainted with the city and the residents.
Adriana Martinez-Smiley: It's great that you are holding a position now that is a bit more in line with your education. So this is a brand new position within the city of Kettering. What are the responsibilities that were described in your title?
Kirchner: Coming up with a broader city-wide sustainability plan. So where do we want to be in five, ten, 15, 20 years, and what is the impact of that? Part of this too, will be working quite a bit with other departments.
So a lot of it will be trying to figure out what's going on now and what are some of the goals that all of our departments already have and how can we make sure that it's staying aligned with that broader sustainability plan?
Water quality is part of that. So stormwater permitting through the EPA will fall under me. So I'll work with the engineering division and city planning division to make sure that we're meeting all of those requirements as well.
Martinez-Smiley: You're working within a city government and that often means that you're bound by things such as revenue expenditures and budgets. How might that impact the type of sustainability projects that the city is able to pursue?
Kirchner: Budget, no matter what line of business you're in is a big deal. That's where planning really comes into play. So having that city-wide sustainability plan is important to figure out where we are at now funding-wise and what resources are out there to make sure that we can reach those goals.
Of course we want to do all the things now, but what can we do now; what can we do in the near future; and what do we really have to plan for? So that's a big component as we work with other departments and take a look at what's working in other cities.
Martinez-Smiley: What are specific challenges that Kettering sees when it comes to reaching sustainability goals?
Kirchner: We worked with Power a Clean Future Ohio to do a broad greenhouse gas inventory (last year.) And so energy in homes is our number one emitter of carbon and we have an aging infrastructure. So we have older houses. And so trying to address how do we start retrofitting houses to be more energy efficient? How can we make sure that that's something that our lower income population can tackle? When we're able to do that, not only are the houses more energy efficient, but we're saving our residents more money.
Transportation is another thing. How do we cut down on our fuel usage carbon emissions? So is that adding more public transportation? Is that getting more electrified vehicles into the hands of our residents as well as in our city fleets to start cutting down on those emissions?
Martinez-Smiley: What are any specific projects that you are excited to get working on?
Kirchner: Yes, so certainly I mentioned earlier on our sustainability plan.
The other thing that we're really looking forward to doing is collecting more data on all of our buildings. So of course we have this broad snapshot of what our greenhouse gas inventory looks like. But what do all of our individual buildings look like as well? Starting to look at how we retrofit some of our own buildings to cut down on energy expenditures is going to be a big thing.
And I'm also looking forward to the community engagement component. That's been a big area that I've always done throughout my career. But really getting out and talking to our residents, our business owners, to find out what (they) want to see in terms of sustainability for this community.
We think we might know, but it's important that we have an understanding of what our community really wants and how we approach addressing those wants and needs.
I'm also looking forward to addressing some of the requests that residents have been having on home composting or larger composting facilities in the area, like at the Foodbank. We have a lot of people interested in beekeeping and incorporating more native plants into their yards to cut down on pesticides, mowing and just beautifying their yard as well.
So sometimes those are areas that people overlook that really have a big difference in our communities as well.
