Leadership Spotlight: Jennifer Roberts, speaker and author, former Director of the Path to Positive Communities Program, and former Mayor of Charlotte
SSC Leadership Spotlight: Jennifer Roberts, speaker and author, former Director of the Path to Positive Communities Program with ecoAmerica and Former Mayor of Charlotte
This interview is part of a series of blog posts highlighting prominent members of the Smart Surfaces Coalition team. Over the coming months, we will publish interviews with Coalition Steering Committee members as they talk about their work, our environment and the Smart Surfaces mission.
This interview was conducted by Ivy Moore (IM), Digital Media and Communications intern at Smart Surfaces Coalition.
IM: Can you share how you learned about climate change and why this is an issue you have devoted much of your time to?
JR: It's been decades. I remember President Carter talking about climate change in the 70s. I was pretty young at the time, but I've always been an outdoor enthusiast. I started hearing people talking about how native plant species were changing and how the environment and the ecology were changing. The United Nations have been meeting for 26 years with the Conference of the Parties and it was probably around that time when I realized this is something that we need to pay attention to, because I was a student of international relations and was following what the UN was doing.
In all my concern about sustainability and the environment and all that I've done in public office, even before I was elected, it all started coming together when I realized one of the biggest things that we worry about when we see the environment suffering is public health. Knowing that there are so many people who suffer from respiratory and heart illnesses—and climate change is just making it worse.
Growing up in the South, I was concerned with the dumping of toxins along our highways in North Carolina which was a big part of the rise of the environmental justice movement in Warren County, which is where my family is from. My awareness of the climate crisis has grown gradually, but I'm certainly feeling the urgency right now.
IM: Your career has been very eventful—you have been Chair of Mecklenburg County Commission, Mayor of Charlotte, an international banker, a diplomat, a professor, and even a math teacher. I’m sure I’m missing so many! Has there been a common thread that drew you to each of these positions?
JR: I am very curious. And I'm also very open to learning about other cultures, challenges, and ways that we can solve the challenges we have. Education has always been a deep-seated passion of mine. Public education is not just for K through 12 or college, it's educating our citizens and our residents about how they can make this a more livable country and neighborhood.
Growing up as a woman in the South I saw a lot of racism and sexism. What I realized, as we get into a more and more complex society where technology is changing rapidly, is that we need all good ideas at the table. If we start excluding certain groups of people, whether they're disabled, LGBTQ, Black and Brown or native communities, we start excluding those ideas from solutions. We need all those perspectives.
Something that I find interesting while looking at climate change solutions is that there are Native American communities out West who have been doing cultural burnings for centuries. This helps reduce the underbrush in our forests and helps reduce the magnitude of some of the wildfires that we've been experiencing. Finally, some of the public firefighters in California are getting lessons from the native and indigenous communities about this practice. This is one example of how all ideas need to come to the table. The idea of equity, inclusion, and continuing to learn have been driving forces behind my career paths.
IM: What did your path to becoming the Mayor of Charlotte look like? Was this something you always knew you wanted to do?
JR: I don't think I ever would have thought about being a mayor. I served on the County Commission for four terms, then I ran for Congress and was not successful, but I desired to continue that service and then I saw that the mayor's position was open. I felt that that was a high-profile position, where a lot of the values and the service and the issues are important to the strength and health of our community, and it would be a way to continue to serve in that area.
One of the things I talk to people in the community about now is the fact that environmental racism is part of the cycle of poverty. When we look at our communities in Charlotte we have a crescent of poverty that stretches from the west to the east and a little bit north of our Downtown. If you look at where our highways were placed, much of the toxins that were dumped, and where our landfills are placed, they were all put in that Crescent. This is where communities have higher incidences of respiratory illness like asthma, COPD, strokes, it's all in the same place. This makes it hard to keep a job and to stay in school.
Why do we think there's a cycle of poverty? It's connected to conscious policy decisions that place toxins and things harmful to our health in those low-income neighborhoods that continue to struggle today. Connecting those dots is really important for us to correct those issues. I am still working as a regular citizen to advocate with our local, state and federal governments, about making conscious decisions to reinvest. We need to look at reducing urban heat, we need to look at improving shade, add more parks, and even look at the way we build public housing to have green spaces and to have energy efficiency.
As mayor, I was part of the global covenant of mayors, and I started the Clean Energy proposal that got passed after I was out of office. Now I'm on the advisory committee that is working to help not just the city do the right thing, but also businesses, nonprofits, churches, and we're trying to get churches to use rooftop solar to help contribute to mitigating our climate crisis and making our community more livable.
IM: Can you share a little bit about your work with Path to Positive Communities?
JR: Path to Positive Communities is all about energizing local communities because that's where the rubber hits the road to take charge on bringing solutions to local government, local neighborhoods, and local businesses. We look at North Carolina, which is one of the most challenged states for climate impacts. We have a coastline that's eroding and we have western mountains and woods that have wildfires and mudslides. We look at what impacts are hitting North Carolina. So what can people do? What can they support that's already going on? And what can they add? And how do you advocate in a positive, non-partisan way?
Unfortunately, climate change has become a partisan issue, not a science issue. So there are people who don't believe the science because their political party doesn't believe it. That's not helping us. So we try to find people like Conservatives for Clean Energy. There’s also a group called RepublicEN that is trying to get more people in the climate caucus on the conservative side to say clean energy is actually a business and investment opportunity.
Looking at our electric buses in Charlotte, we found that we could save about $300,000 per bus, when you look at its 12-year lifespan. We're trying to raise that awareness at the local level. People are very motivated by what's happening to their own health and their family's health. And when you start connecting those dots, you continue that ripple effect of people caring about how we can reduce our heat, make our cities and the outdoors easier and more comfortable to access. And how do we help those families who are energy burdened and are struggling to pay that utility bill? How can we get them a grant for energy efficiency so we can insulate their attic and put shading on their windows and seal up the doors and windows? All those things are going to help them reduce their energy burden, which in the end, reduces the emissions as well.
IM: In your home city of Charlotte, what would be the biggest improvements if Smart Surfaces were to be widely adopted in the future?
JR: Everybody who lives in Charlotte knows that when you drive in southeast Charlotte, which is the part that was invested in by the city, it is the wealthy part of our city with mostly white residents, and huge trees. Queens Road is famous for its huge oak trees. When you go into the west and east side of our city, there are lots of parking lots, not many sidewalks, and minimal tree cover. In some of the areas that have older trees, we have low-income families who can't always maintain them. So we get broken limbs that are hurting the structures, we get trees that die because they haven't been maintained and taken care of. There are a lot of people who care about green space, but they don't know all the ways that trees are helpful. People want to do the right thing, but it has not been covered in the media well enough.
Recognizing that urban heat is a threat to our health and our life is something that people are just starting to realize. They're seeing children not being able to play outside on hot days and are worried about their health. Parts of our country are not able to be outside because of smoke from wildfires. There are solutions that we can implement that are going to help—like light colored surfaces. I know a number of cities have ordinances that say any new roof has to be a cool roof. That's something we should absolutely consider. My hope is that more and more cities begin to realize that they can save lives and save money from hospital visits, for example. We've seen how our healthcare system can be overwhelmed so easily. We want to support our healthcare workers and keep people out of those emergency rooms. Smart surfaces can help do that.
IM: What do you think is the most urgent change we need in terms of education?
JR: Everybody can play a role. We're seeing more and more companies form sustainability departments and sustainability committees to get their employees involved. I think it would be great if every company over 100 people talked about what their company is doing in regards to sustainability during new employee training. It would show that they value it which can act as a marketing tool, but also it helps educate people on what they can do.
We started a requirement for companies to recycle their cardboard, and the first six months companies complained and they said they have to change the whole way they box and bring things into their company. A year later, they came to our County Commission meeting and thanked us because they were saving money and it made the employees feel good about working there. I'd love to see more companies start to do this.
I encourage people to start a green committee at your church or synagogue or temple. Neighborhoods are coming together to do community gardens, and as a collective group you build community and a strong sense of connection which we know helps older people function better and stay healthier, helps communities be resilient.
There are so many ways to educate people. There are government, business, nonprofit, faith, neighborhood and family roles. One of the things that has worked so well with recycling is having the schools teach children about how to reduce emissions, reduce waste and reduce all the plastic floating in the ocean. The kids then go home and tell their parents that they don't throw that soda can in the garbage, because it goes in the recycling bin. And the children can lead us!