Navigating Urban Sustainability with Chief Strategy Officer Trisha Stein

In this episode, host Stephen Goldsmith interviews Detroit's Chief Strategy Officer Trisha Stein, who discusses her efforts in urban sustainability, highlighting Detroit's initiatives to combat the effects of climate change, promote clean and safe mobility, and foster community collaboration and leadership. Stein shares insights for city leaders aiming to create resilient and sustainable urban environments through innovative, cross-departmental strategies.

Listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts. The following is a transcript of their conversation.

Stephen Goldsmith:

Welcome back. This is Stephen Goldsmith, Professor of Urban Policy at the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University with another one of our podcasts. And this time we have one of the country's leaders in urban strategy. Trisha Stein, who was Chief Strategy Officer at Detroit, was previously Chief of Staff, has a wide-ranging portfolio and lots of enthusiasm. Welcome, Trisha.

Trisha Stein:

Thanks Stephen. This is great.

Stephen Goldsmith:

Let's start with a general, how'd you get into city government? Why are you there?

Trisha Stein:

It's always been a passion. It's always been something that I've been interested in. I ran my first political campaign when I was in sixth grade. I've been pretty open and transparent about that through the years. Ran my first paid political campaign when I was in 12th grade, it was 1988. It was a lot of lessons learned. It was a judicial campaign for a male candidate running against a female candidate and that year, there was a pretty controversial state funded abortions was on the ballot and the female vote really came out that year and a lot of lessons learned. So that set my passion on fire and really wanted to focus on state and local government and figure out how best to deliver results not only for my home, but particularly my home state. And then I fell in love with Detroit along the way and here I am.

Stephen Goldsmith:

So Trisha, you went from chief of staff in the city of Detroit to chief strategy officer. What is a chief strategy officer?

Trisha Stein:

I'm going to tell you how the city of Detroit interprets what a chief strategy officer is. Mayor Duggan, late 2020, developed this position and really is to focus on key mayoral priorities and make sure that they're achieved. And this is his vision that is cross-departmental, reaches out also to external stakeholders and partners across the city. And really we partner to get the work done and it needs to live in the mayor's office. And that's the work that I do every day. I'm a convener and a collaborator and bring together subject matter experts that really are out there delivering on this work every day. I help inform and make sure that the mayor's vision and provide leadership to get results.

Stephen Goldsmith:

So does a chief strategy officer work with the mayor to develop new strategy or do you work mostly to implement existing strategies?

Trisha Stein:

Yeah, that's a great question. Well its evolved, even though it's only been for 16 months that I've been in this job. It really has evolved, so it started with a handful of initiatives and at the time one of them was behavioral health, which is very much a subject matter that's near and dear my heart. And so just to focus on that one, it evolved into substance abuse and overseeing all of our opioid settlement dollars. It's also recently evolved into the unsheltered crisis and dealing with not only domestic unsheltereds, but also new arrivals. So that part of my portfolio has really expanded and the mayor has me overseeing that work because again, that's cross-departmental, it can't just live inside one department. Our housing and revitalization department can't just be responsible. Our police department, which is so on the front lines, in responding to these calls for service, they can't just be responsible.

So I oversee that, bring together departments, we identify gaps in service, and together we work to solve these problems. Another one that I know we're going to talk about here in a minute is sustainability. And that really was focused on climate change when I first started is if that wasn't big enough. And then in the first three months, the mayor said, "Well, you really should probably oversee mobility and innovation because so much of that cross-departmental work feeds into climate change with our low and no emission vehicle transition and building out the EV charging infrastructure." So that are some of the things that I tackle every day and bring together leaders inside our city departments and our external partners to deliver on the mayor's vision and priorities.

Stephen Goldsmith:

Trisha, one of the things in particular we wanted to talk to you about relates to this, which is the following. On issues like sustainability, climate, cross-cutting issues that are really difficult to deal with, many mayors are committed, but they don't really have a central point of authority. So what is your chief sustainability officer? What's their responsibility and how do you run interference for them?

Trisha Stein:

Yeah, so our sustainability director reports directly to me. The mayor also designed that, so that is a function and an office that reports up through the mayor's office, but I've been really vocal about this, it can't just live inside one department, one unit. There's a core central staff that they are focused on delivering the Detroit Climate Strategy. So we can talk more about that here in a minute, but the climate strategy lays out our focus areas to reduce emissions, fight climate change. And so while there's a core group that focuses on that, there has to be key personnel, there has to be specific tasks that spread across the city and is embedded within city departments. That's the way we're going to set up to be successful, and that's the way we're going to be able to deliver results.

As I said, it was a little late in the mayor's administration that developed this position and focused on sustainability. He had a lot of other things to do coming out of the largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the US and then said, "We've got to play catch up." And so the best way to do that, particularly with climate change and sustainability and mobility and innovation, is to again, have that core group that reports up through me, but then there are key personnel that are responsible and take on the task of delivering on the climate strategy that lays out the mayor's priority areas.

Stephen Goldsmith:

The job of sustainability, do you have agency task force that reports to the sustainability person? How actually does it work to develop cross agency plans and then implement them on issues of sustainability?

Trisha Stein:

There was a robust community engagement process that happened, and this happened before I got in this role. We had ambassadors that were funded through philanthropic dollars, that they went out and really leaned in and were intentional about a community engagement and heard from the community of what did they want to see in that climate strategy. And then there's also a green task force, and that reports up through the city council, but we work in close collaboration with them.

And that's leaders not only from city council, but from business and community advocates and sustainability subject matter experts. So we work with them and are very intentional about what does the plan need to look like. And while I said there are four focus areas that the mayor has informed since transitioning to clean energy, increasing sustainable mobility and EV charging infrastructure, accelerating our energy efficiency and reducing waste and prioritizing vulnerable residents and increasing resilience.

Those are huge buckets and those are the mayor's priorities. So what then we try to do with the task force and with our partnership in community engagement and working across departments, is breaking those down into bite-sized chews. So we have specific tasks that roll up into those four areas and then assigned either someone specific in a department or multiple departments if they cross over departments of responsibility and then have the smaller tasks that then can deliver on the overarching global goals.

For instance, one of the examples that we're using right now is building out a food recovery system. And there's a very healthy ecosystem in the city of Detroit that does food reclamation from grocery stores and markets and then redistributes them. The mayor's office is going to play a bigger role in this. We announced our first urban agriculture director last fall. And so her role and her task is really to work across the urban farms, work across this food reclamation network, but be the convener, be the collaborator to then fill in gaps and work a little bit more efficiently and smart and give the residents more of a choice and empower them instead of getting a box that may or may not be that useful of food, but empower their choice and that's the type of cross-departmental and external partners that we're working on.

Stephen Goldsmith:

How often are you the police person? When I was deputy mayor of New York, Mayor Bloomberg had before my time developed a long-term sustainability program, which was very comprehensive. There was an office of long-term sustainability. It reported to me as deputy mayor, but on occasion I would go down and get the capital plan of X, Y, Z agency and compare it to the long-term sustainability plan and raise my hand and ask questions about, well, why isn't this there? Could you think about that? So one set of functions I hear you say is kind of the collegial, bring them together function. How about the policing function to ensure that you've done the very best with the money you're spending?

Trisha Stein:

I think that's part of the role. I mean, that's part of why I have to be here. I have to be a backstop. I have to be able to call balls and strikes and really help maintain not only the collegiality as you frame it, but also the functionality and make sure that there's fidelity to the model and that we are fulfilling the priorities that the mayor has laid out. Let's just take another example. Let's talk about the unsheltered. This also is something that I'm really leaning in on and we're bringing together disparate groups. These departments are very well-meaning, they have star power and subject matter experts. And it's my job to get them together and they may come at the solution differently, but then figure out how to maximize their strengths so that they all work together, but still is for the collective good.

And this is something that we have a lot of consternation on and a little grist for the mill. We are a very highly functioning team right now, but that's not always going to be the case, nor is it always the case. We're going to have to hit plateaus when we hit something that's very hard and complicated. As you know, you've had a long history in public surface. It's messy work and it's not always clear. And so that's part of the role that I have to do. I have to be able to provide leadership and guidance and help make those really hard judgment calls.

Stephen Goldsmith:

I know from my work that Detroit has been sophisticated city in its use of data, its capabilities are quite strong. But at the same time, when you're planning sustainability projects, they're going to occur in somebody's neighborhood. And I know you have both by ordinance and personally a commitment to collaboration. Discuss with us a little bit and maybe even with an example of how that collaboration actually occurs around a sustainability project.

Trisha Stein:

Yeah, I love this question. This is one of our key initiatives that we are delivering on right now that I want to talk about. The city has been very intentional as we move towards a just transition and we redevelop land that has not really been that fully utilized in a long time. Decades of disinvestment has been occurring here in the city. And so we want to make sure that the residents are not only at the table, but they are part of the decision making process. So the initiative that I want to share with you and the example is the mayor's solar neighborhood initiative. And this is where we're going to locally site approximately 200 acres in the city of Detroit of solar development. This will be clean energy that will offset the energy use of about 127 municipal buildings.

And other cities are doing this. I know that's not revolutionary. Other cities are doing that outside their city boundaries. So they're looking hundreds of miles away in developing clean energy either with windmills or solar. And when we presented the plans to the mayor, we thought using our under productive land and our vacant land could be a strategy for us and could be a real opportunity. And the mayor completely pushed us hard and said, "This is exactly what I want to do. I want to locally site it here and I want to solve our own problem and I want to be a leader in this." And so he pitched it to the neighborhood late last June and opened it up to any neighborhood, could apply to host a solar array. And so the results that we got were fascinating. We didn't really see it coming the way it came together.

There are over 27 neighborhood groups that had interest and then there were 10 neighborhoods that applied. They did a full application. It was due last fall. We are down to eight finalists. We're just evaluating the final neighborhoods. We'll probably end up with five or six winners. We'll announce those here in a couple of weeks. We're also doing an RFP to select developers to develop these solar arrays here in the city of Detroit. And part of their agreement, the development agreement that we negotiate, and we've been very open and transparent with them about this is, they will have to work with the neighborhood groups and get an agreement, official signed agreement with the neighbors, on what the design looks like, what the fencing looks like, what the planting looks like, and what the maintenance is of the solar arrays.

And then additionally, there'll be community benefits for the surrounding homeowners in those neighborhoods. And so they will get energy efficiency upgrades anywhere for 15 to $25,000 per home. And we'll take an evaluation of these homes that surround the solar arrays and make sure that they are not only part of the solution, but they also get the benefits.

Stephen Goldsmith:

When you conduct those meetings. How do you work with the community both to show them the options and to take your input. Particularly on issues of environment, it takes a little bit of education for a community to understand what's happening to them before they can kind of react. So how do you think about the use of data visualization tools, mapping or any other device, social media, to gather the views of the community?

Trisha Stein:

Yeah, so the piece that I forgot that I do want to mention, when we were doing the community outreach, we also invested in neighborhood solar partners, so we call them NSPs, neighborhood solar partners. And this was an effort that was funded again by philanthropic dollars. And we had subject matter experts on the environment and energy and solar and clean energy development. And we paired them up with our department of neighborhoods and any neighborhood that was interested got paired up with a neighbor solar partner. So we invested in external stakeholders that were subject matter experts, to help us to inform and make sure that there was a neutral party, if you will, in these community meetings and presenting the information so that they could be evaluated. As I said, there were 27 neighborhoods that were interested in. We paired them up with these subject matter experts and 10 of them made applications.

We really felt that that helped inform the process that the neighborhoods understood what a solar array was, what the benefits could be, what if any, potential drawbacks, and made sure that they knew that this would be ongoing engagement, they would have a say in what the look would be in the maintenance, and then also for the surrounding homeowners, what potential benefits would come for them. And in the application, they chose what benefits they wanted, and that work was help guided and informed by the neighbor solar partners and they all chose energy efficient upgrades for their homes, which is all part of our Detroit Climate Strategy as well. So it really helped inform and get us towards that goal as well.

Stephen Goldsmith:

So before we finish, Trisha, let's talk a little bit about your use of data. I know we've got a project, Harvard has a project with you now to look at the relationship between environmental pollution and public health. How do you use all the data capacities you have either for targeting or interventions or community conversations?

Trisha Stein:

One of the initiatives that I oversee is data governance, and that's one of the ones I asked for because I think it is so important the way we share our data, not only publicly, which I absolutely led that effort at the Detroit Police Department and putting our data on the open data portal, but also amongst departments. And I know that that might seem silly that we don't share amongst departments, but you would be surprised how siloed the data collection and information sharing can be between city departments that sit right next to each other and may have very similar core functions.

And so it really is important to inform and support our work is what and how data is shared. And sometimes there's policies and protocols back to the behavioral health and unsheltered work that I oversee. Those are three different entities that govern by different policies. So you've got the criminal justice entity, you've got HIPAA protected personal information, and you've got the homeless management system. And so that is part of the work that we do every day to figure out they're touching the same people, they're case management of the same people, how and what data can we collect and then share amongst each other to help inform the work and get better results.

Stephen Goldsmith:

So Trisha, before we sign off, and this will be a little bit redundant, but one of the things you have to offer other cities in the country is this interesting structure that you have with a strong mayor, a chief strategy officer, a concentration on sustainability. Just tell other large cities if you will. What do you think would be the ideal organizational relationship to set up in order to accomplish goals of environmental justice and sustainability?

Trisha Stein:

Yeah, I really think the best strategy is to have core staff within the mayor's office or for close thereof, that can lift up the priorities and deliver on the vision, but it can't just be there. I think that's what happened in the city before and it has to go beyond, and it has to be embedded within the city departments. That is where the star power is. That's where our subject matter experts are. They are delivering every day on the work and producing city operations at a really highly functioning level. And so making, as I said, small tasks to achieve the overarching goal, but small tasks that the departments can achieve towards that goal and having them identify the staff person that's responsible and taking ownership and responsibility is truly how I believe how you can be successful and be able to cover a very wide path of environmental goals and climate change priorities.

Stephen Goldsmith:

So you've got a great structure. You're an energetic, accomplished public servant. What have you accomplished?

Trisha Stein:

Yeah, in 16 months, it has been a wild journey so far. And looking back on it, it is been an impressive list of accomplishments and more to come. As I said, the Neighborhood Solar Initiative was launched and we feel we're in really good shape to have vendors selected and neighborhoods selected and have that work probably begin before the end of this calendar year. Our first director of Urban Agriculture has been named to really lift that work up and focus on food and recovery efforts and empowerment of our urban farmers. We opened our first resilience center. We've got more to come, but it's a resiliency hub that is onsite solar and battery storage and generators, so they can operate during power outages. And that was constructed with a 33 percent reduction in carbon emissions, so more resilience hubs to come. We've started our fleet transition. We've completely transitioned our municipal parking department fleet, so they are 100 percent EV.

And the public response has been phenomenal. Folks see them driving through the community and said, "Oh, this makes so much sense that there's zero emissions." We put a huge wrap on them so it's very obvious that they're 100% emission-free. And the feedback has been great. We passed a benchmarking ordinance, so by the end of this year, we will be ready to report energy and water usage for all buildings in the city of Detroit, over 100,000 square feet. It's about 720 buildings, and then we'll lower that threshold and port out on more buildings in years to come. So a lot of that will be dash boarding and data reporting on our city website.

We've published the Detroit Climate Strategy, which I talked about a little bit, but really that now exists and is real and is out there and helps guide our work and provides a framework for all of what we hope to accomplish. We announced weekly recycling, which I know seems obvious in other cities, but we were only doing biweekly recycling. So in June we will have weekly recycling. Again, that was a huge request from residents. We've got electric buses, we've got more electric buses coming on order in 2025. We have our first electric refuge trucks coming soon. Transportation sector is 35% of our GHG admissions, so we're really focusing on the fleet transition.

And micro mobility, we've got 10 locations in the city this summer and fall for MoGo bikes. And then our scooter program will expand this summer as well. And then just yesterday we announced our autonomous shuttle vehicle, there will always be a driver, but we're testing that out for older adults and people with disabilities, that would be on demand service in two zones in the city to see if that is a solution in the future for point to point and on-demand transportation.

Stephen Goldsmith:

That was one impressive list. So this is Steve Goldsmith with Trish Stein, one of the country's leaders in terms of strategy and sustainability. Thank you so much for your time today.