[FILLED] Los Angeles County Public Works Climate Ready Communities
Host: Los Angeles County Public Works – Strategic Planning and Sustainability Office
Region: Southern California
Openings: 1
Project Focus: Climate Adaptation, Disaster Response / Emergency Management, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, Other
Skills Needed: Project Management, Research, Data Analysis, Data Collection, Critical Thinking, Self-Motivated
Service Needs & Plans
Los Angeles County Public Works (PW), the largest Public Works agency in the nation, builds and maintains a wide range of infrastructure related to water, transportation, waste, and public buildings. PW serves an important role as a steward for sustainability, while striving to meet the high expectations of PW Strategic Plan, Los Angeles County’s OurCounty Sustainability Plan, and 2045 Climate Action Plan (CAP).
With nearly 10 million residents and 88 cities, Los Angeles County’s demographic and geographic diversity, along with socio-economic and cultural factors, present many challenges and opportunities related to climate change mitigation and adaptation. Climate change in Los Angeles County includes more frequent and severe heat waves and wildfires, worsening air quality, and increasing severe rainfall or drought, all of which disproportionately impact underserved communities and communities of color.
PW is leading the Climate Ready Communities initiative (CRC) to build resilience in areas where climate vulnerability is highest. The initiative is informed by the Los Angeles County Climate Vulnerability Assessment and will focus on addressing risks associated with extreme heat, wildfire, drought, inland flooding, and coastal flooding. CRC aims to build resilience, reduce vulnerability, and foster equitable outcomes in the face of climate change to ensure that communities are better prepared to withstand and recover from climate-related challenges. CRC will prioritize advancing equity and environmental justice by focusing on communities disproportionately impacted by climate hazards.
Project Description
1.Climate Ready Communities
Climate Ready Communities will focus efforts on understanding vulnerable communities susceptible to climate hazards; engaging and educating communities to foster awareness and preparedness; integrating climate vulnerability in data-driven decision-making; and leveraging existing resources to offer climate-ready opportunities.
PW will perform an internal assessment of existing PW resiliency and sustainability policies, practices, initiatives, services, and projects to determine strategies and opportunities under PW purview to better support unincorporated communities that are most vulnerable to climate change. This internal effort will include a compendium of industry best practices, an action roadmap, and a communication plan to cultivate a culture where sustainability and resiliency are incorporated into all of PW planning, design, operations, maintenance, and procedures. These efforts will help PW understand our role is supporting our communities and ensure our projects and services build resilience, reduce vulnerability, and prioritize equity and environmental justice.
The Fellow will work with PW Business Branches and Divisions to identify and understand existing PW sustainability policies, practices, initiatives, and projects, and along with research on industry best practices, they will help identify areas of improvement. The Fellow will perform research in support of the compendium of best practices to understand what other jurisdictions are doing to address community climate vulnerability and help identify the gaps in PW services and initiatives. Ultimately, these efforts will support the future development of a PW Strategic Action Roadmap and Communication Plan for PW. They will also gain experience in working for a large government agency and learn about PW operations.
2.Public Works Implementation of the 2045 Climate Action Plan
The Los Angeles County 2045 Climate Action Plan (CAP), expected to be finalized in Fall 2023, details strategies, measures, and actions that will help the County and unincorporated communities, including underserved communities, achieve carbon neutrality by 2045. PW has a major role with the implementation of the CAP, with 87% of the actions assigned to PW in either a lead or support capacity. Many actions in the CAP directly relate to CRC to help build resilience for unincorporated communities. In support of CRC, PW will identify a CAP implementation strategy to prioritize investment and actions where climate vulnerability is the highest.
The CivicSpark Fellow will assist with the implementation of the CAP by identifying reporting metrics, calculating PW’s operational impacts, and developing a reporting framework, in partnership with other County Departments, to support long-term reporting and streamline data management for the annual reporting process. The streamlined data analysis process will expedite annual reporting, support a quick evaluation of sustainability efforts made through PW operations, and consistently illustrate the impacts of PW sustainable practices year after year.
The Fellow will identify data sources for annual reporting purposes, address data gaps, work with PW Business Branches and Divisions to provide input for key metrics to be incorporated into the annual reporting framework and evaluate data management solutions to effectively track data. Fellow experience also includes the opportunity to identify and quantify efforts towards carbon neutrality by 2045. The Fellow will gain experience in working for a large government agency and learn about PW operations.
Desired Skills
Fellows should have strong interpersonal, organizational, data management, and writing skills. They should have an interest in learning about climate change, climate risk and vulnerabilities, equity, environmental justice, and climate action planning. It would also be desirable for fellow to have experience with public engagement.
Organization & Community Highlights
Los Angeles County Public Works (PW) is the largest Public Works agency in the nation, serving more than 10 million people across a 4,000-square-mile regional service area. Public Works has a vision to become the most trusted public agency in the region and a mission to plan, design, build, and maintain modern infrastructure that uplifts all communities of Los Angeles County.
Working for PW, specifically with the Strategic Planning and Sustainability Office, will be a great opportunity for the Fellow to experience working for a large, professional government agency. The Fellow will have the opportunity to understand the entire agency, including the broad range of services PW provides and infrastructure PW manages, collaborate with professional engineers, and build subject-matter-expertise on Sustainability.
The Fellow will also learn real-world Climate Action Plan implementation and enhance other skills like translating data into tangible and meaningful results that will lead PW to become a more sustainable agency.
Remote or On-Site Placement
Hybrid