Abstract

The City of Chicago envisions a green recovery that will strengthen local communities, provide critical relief for residents, and improve overall livability. Angela Tovar will discuss how the Lightfoot administration is advancing strategies that position Chicago to achieve its 2025 and 2035 clean energy targets and reduce reliance on fossil fuels while delivering equitable co-benefits to residents and businesses.

Collaborating Organizations for Green Cities 2021

Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization, UN-Habitat, AIA New York, AIANY Planning & Design, the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-NY, Habitat Professionals Forum for Sustainable Cities, Perkins-Eastman, Creative Exchange Lab, Columbia Center for Buildings, Infrastructure & Public Space and Global Urban Development (GUD)

Speaker

Angela Tovar

Chief Sustainability Officer, City of Chicago

Angela Tovar has worked as a community planner, program manager, and climate and environmental justice advocate for over 15 years. In 2020, Angela was appointed as the Chief Sustainability Officer for the City of Chicago by Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Angela has committed to centering the City of Chicago’s climate and sustainability agenda on equity and mitigating environmental harm in Chicago’s most overburdened and underserved communities. 

Angela began her career in the public sector in 2019 as a Program Manager for the Cook County Department of Environment and Sustainability, where she focused her efforts primarily on renewable energy programming. Prior to that, Angela worked in the South Bronx for over a decade, first as the Director of Policy for Sustainable South Bronx and later as the Director of Community Development for the POINT CDC. In these roles, Angela oversaw community partnerships, advocacy and environmental justice efforts, and climate mitigation planning, including the development and implementation of a community-based climate resiliency initiative known as The South Bronx Community Resiliency Agenda.

Angela’s passion for social and environmental justice stems from her experience growing up on the industrial waterfront of Lake Michigan on Chicago’s Southeast side.  She holds a B.A. in Urban Studies from the College of Charleston and a Masters in Urban Planning from City University of New York Hunter College.

Learning Objectives

• Describe how the climate and sustainability agenda of the City of Chicago is centered on social equity and mitigating environmental harm in Chicago’s most overburdened and underserved communities.
  
  
• Discuss how the City of Chicago envisions a green recovery that will strengthen local communities, provide critical relief for residents, and improve overall livability.
  
  
• Illustrate how the Lightfoot administration, through the Comprehensive Climate Action Plan, is advancing strategies that position Chicago to achieve its 2025 and 2035 clean energy targets and reduce reliance on fossil fuels while delivering equitable co-benefits to residents and businesses.
  
  
• Identify how a Building Decarbonization Strategy will explore best practice research on urban decarbonization in a dozen peer cities so as to inform future budget and policy priorities.