How the City of San Diego Implements Sustainable Initiatives

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Shelby Rust Buso: Our climate is important, our health is important, this is a high value impact, and our people are worth it as well. And so, we want to invest in our future, and so it's important for us to be talking about it and giving it the value that it's worth.

Ally Peters: Welcome to Bridging the Digital Divide, a Smart city podcast from Soofa, where we explore the places where urban landscapes are intertwined with technology to see how connectivity thrives, innovation sparks, and sustainability grows. 

Hello. Welcome to another episode of Bridging the Digital Divide. I'm Ally Peters, the Content Marketing Specialist here at Soofa. And I'm joined by Kiel Hauck, the director of marketing at Soofa. Hello, Kiel. How are you doing? Good. We're almost at the end of our first season here, which is kind of crazy to think about.

Kiel Hauck: It is crazy.

Ally Peters: Started as an idea, like, probably well over a year ago at this point. And now we're already here. It's kind of just like, funny to think about. We've already done so much.

Kiel Hauck: We did it.

Ally Peters: We did it. We really did. And today we're going to be talking to Shelby Rust Buso, who is the Chief Sustainability Officer at the city of San Diego. Shelby has lots of experience working in innovative cities like Miami and Augusta. And this role was developed, I think, just about a year ago. She's a year into this role. And we're really excited to talk to somebody who is specifically working on sustainable initiatives for a city. I feel like it's come up a lot in our conversations, Kiel. Just talk about sustainable projects and what cities are doing to think more sustainably. But it's exciting to get to talk to somebody whose role is solely that.

Kiel Hauck: Yeah, I was talking with somebody recently in space who was kind of mentioning that in years past, you would visit a smart city conference. And there's the mobility and transit groups. There's all these different departments and groups that are involved in this. And then over in the corner, there'd be the sustainability people. Well, now those people are kind of at the forefront. Sustainability is a big part of the conversation. As people think about smart city technology and the future of cities in general, you can't avoid it. And as you said, it's been coming up in a lot of our conversations. And I'm just delighted that we had the chance to chat with Shelby, you know, to hear how a city like San Diego is thinking about sustainability as a whole. I thought it was a really fabulous conversation.

Ally Peters: Me too. And so, we can get right into our conversation. Here is Shelby Rust Buso.

Kiel Hauck: Shelby, thank you so much for giving us your time today.

Shelby Rust Buso: Thanks so much for having me.

Kiel Hauck: We always like to kind of start the conversation by getting a little bit of background. I know you actually, it looks like you kind of started in the legal field and worked your way into sustainability and now, obviously, a role that you took on last year as the Chief Sustainability Officer in San Diego. Tell us a little bit about your journey that has kind of brought you to where you are today.

Shelby Rust Buso: That's right, I did. I went to school up in Vermont, which really was a pleasure. It was nice to be up in New England and be inspired by all of the natural surroundings up there. And I started out by practicing law and it was really inspirational and great. But I did want to refine that work by getting out to be with the people a little bit more and kind of transitioned over into the space where I wanted to be a public servant. And started that career in the city of Atlanta a few years ago. Almost a decade ago, actually, in the city of Atlanta, in the Office of Resilience, when that kicked off back during the 100 Resilient cities days. 

And the resilience term really was a little bit of an evolving term at that time and focused a lot on economic resilience, really. From there went down a little further south to the city of Miami and resilience was a little bit more infrastructure based. And now I'm really happy to be on the West Coast and talking about sustainability and greenhouse gas emissions and focusing the work a little bit differently, but really taking into account the evolution of my story here and bringing it all to fruition in a little bit of a different way. But it all builds on all the work of the past.

Ally Peters: That's awesome. Yeah. One of the most inspiring parts about doing this podcast is hearing how much more cities are caring about sustainable efforts. And, I mean, I think, your role is just a testament to that. And so what are some of the responsibilities you have as the Chief Sustainability Officer?

Shelby Rust Buso: Yeah, I mean, our department, we are pretty lucky that it's a fairly young department. The Department of Sustainability and Mobility in the city of San Diego has really pulled itself together from various different segments of the city in a very thoughtful way, really. We've been in existence for about two years here, and we say sustainability mobility on purpose because we wanted to pull those things together to very thoughtfully say that we are thinking about sustainability holistically, both from the planning perspective and the implementation side. 

So we have three different pillars of the department's work. We have three deputy Directors that manage sections of interconnected work throughout the department. We have Climate Action and Climate Equity that really manages and maintains our Climate Action plan and also our Climate Equity work. There's a lot of monitoring, reporting, things like that. Wallet Hub distinction, a lot of the reporting efforts in our Climate Disclosure Project, things like that, fall into the category of work. There also our Climate Equity Fund distribution efforts, our Climate Equity Index, and a lot of our external engagement work fall within that pillar of work. We have a mobility pillar that manages a lot of our parking districts, a lot of our micro mobility strategies, and then our long range planning as well. And then we have an energy pillar that does a lot of our municipal energy engagement, pays a lot of our utility bills, does a lot of our internal management as well with our facilities team. 

So, it's a pretty robust department. And as the Chief Sustainability Officer, I get to do a lot of innovation, partnership promotion, and then of course, a lot of our, kind of herding of cats, if you will, when it comes to kind of working with the departments and asking for a lot of information. Sometimes I think my job is also just making friends or making sure they don't run away from me when I'm trying to ask for a lot of favors. But really at the end of the day, this work can't be done by one department. We have to work collaboratively, both again, internally and externally. So it's really fun because every day is different.

Ally Peters: It sounds like you've already built such a great structure of departments there in just two years. It sounds awesome. And I mean, that's another part of this podcast that we keep hearing too, is, the relationship building aspect of community work is just so vital for everything else. So since your appointment last year, what progress has been made in sustainability efforts in San Diego?

Shelby Rust Buso: So I was pretty lucky too, to come in and have our new Climate Action Plan already well underway, under development. And so, as soon as I stepped in, we got to adopt the new Climate Action Plan. We had one in 2015. It was already pretty great, but we knew it needed to be updated. So, we wrote a new Climate Action Plan in 2022, passed it just after I joined the team, and then started with an implementation plan just shortly thereafter. Since then, over the last year, we have gotten to the point of having about 50 or so of the 190 actions that are already in progress, and about 22, or give or take, are already complete. One of the biggest ones that was a pretty heavy lift is having our zero emissions building operations policy go into effect. So when we talk about decarbonization, of course we want to walk the walk first ourselves, internally. So zembop, as we lovingly call it, internally, is our first step. 

So, in our city facilities, we want to go to zero emissions first ourselves before we have anything for external building owners in place so that we can have some lessons learned on our own city facilities. So we have about 400 or so city buildings, and we want to transition those to zero emissions and say how hard it is to learn a little bit about how difficult it could be or what challenges we may face, heading towards zero emissions on those. We've also created a policy to prioritize some climate Action and Equity in our Capital Improvements program, which is great. So any project that the city undertakes, we want to make sure sustainability is in that prioritization process. We've also started, we've broken ground on installations of eight micro grids across the city. We've also been finalizing our scope on our EECBG dollars. So, as you know, I'm sure you've been hearing about a lot of cities and the excitement about some federal dollars coming our way, over the next few years. So we're really excited about that. 

The City of San Diego is really excited to be getting about 1.2 million coming through EECBG, which is our Energy Efficiency block grant funding. We also launched a master mobility plan. It's out for public comment right now, and we got a $10 million grant to plant more trees in some of our communities, especially our low income communities. We know planting trees is expensive, especially in Southern California, where water is going to cost us a lot. So we need maintenance funding to continue that. And decarb is another one that we're working on right now. It's a big one that we're focusing on to launch some pilot programs and partner with our business communities to find some equitable ways to transition to decarbonize our built environment. So, I'll stop there. There's a whole bunch I could talk about, that's a lot.

Kiel Hauck: That's a whole lot. I'm wondering, as you're kind of working through this checklist, and all of the things that are part of this action plan. We have yet to speak with a city official that no matter how well intentioned the project they're working on, that they experience no pushback or no hesitancies from the people that make up the communities that they serve. What is it like for you? How do you approach those conversations or those situations where people are kind of wondering, why are we doing this versus this other thing?  In your role, what does that look like?

Shelby Rust Buso: Yeah, no, I mean, it's a great question. And like you said earlier, relationships are really key, and following through on all of our processes and so our promises. And one thing that I think has been key for us is our Climate Equity Working Group, because we set that up at the onset of our replanning process for the Climate Action Plan. And we didn't just do it as a part of the planning process, and that was a part of the discussion. It was up for discussion. Okay, should we create this equity working group that was about 32, organization, community based organization representatives that came together,  to create a climate equity index. They had one purpose, it was an informal group. And so once they created that, was that the end of their purpose? Should they just disband? 

And we decided to keep them on and then we also decided to hire a climate equity specialist. And then that person just kept them going. And we found there was always something to talk about and we kept them together and we kept following up with them, we kept bringing them together. And there's always transparency in our city operations and we continue capacity building with that group. So my answer, I guess, is really that we just always keep informing everybody about everything that's happening as it's happening, so that there isn't later an opportunity for an organization to ever say, like, we didn't know this was coming, or we can bring a project to city council and they say, we didn't even know what decarbonization meant or what a building performance standard was. 

I mean, of course, not everybody's always going, there's never enough engagement. You can always do more. We're going to always want to do more, we're going to always continue to do more. But we're going to try our best to continually offer opportunities for engagement along the way. And so I think that's the point is to just have continual relationship building, always have opportunities for open communication and that's kind of a main tenet. And one of the reasons I like being here in San Diego is that that ethos is really ingrained across the city. That's great.

Ally Peters: Yeah, that's really great to hear. And it makes sense that so much communication is needed to keep these projects going and make sure everybody knows what's going on. And so when your team has a project in front of you, what's the strategy or what's the typical game plan that takes a project from start to finish?

Shelby Rust Buso: Yeah, I guess I'll maybe explain that through maybe an example for a project. Another fun one that launched recently was, our mobility team actually launched something called the Beach Bug, and I think it's a really good example of something where we knew there was an issue, there was a lack of connection point to one of our communities, a beach community. And we had to figure out a way to get people from point A to point B, but we also didn't have a way to pay for it. 

So, first of all, we identify an issue and then we have to identify a way to fix that issue so we know we have a transportation gap, and then we have to figure out a way to pay for it, and then we also have to figure out a way to get the community behind it. And so with the beach bug we created a parking district in this area and we have the infrastructure behind parking districts that's managed within one of our teams to do that. And so the parking district can pay for a Circulator. And because we're a sustainability department, we want that circulator to be zero emissions, so we can purchase an all electric vehicle.  And then we also want to use technology on hand and on demand, all electric transportation vehicles. 

And we did that with this beach bug, and we figured out how much it's going to cost via a partnership that we have in place. And it just comes together and just this nice package that's paid for by a solution. And then we use the community engagement process through this naming exercise. We did a little contest to name it, and that resulted in this beach bug moniker. And we also have a downtown version called Fred, by the way, the Free Ride Downtown. And it's just, all in all, a really successful, amazing project that kind of on all sides, really makes everybody happy. And it's equitable, because now people can take transit to the closest trolley station and then take this actual low cost solution to the beach that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to access. It's sustainable, it's accessible, the communities behind it, it solves a transportation issue. You try to solve for what the community wants and find a way to pay for it, and  it makes everybody happy.

Kiel Hauck: Yeah, and it's a great lead into my next question, because our podcast, Bridging the Digital Divide, is about how communities are using technology solutions to help create equitable, access to information, access to services, bring communities closer together, and help people that have needs, but those needs aren't getting met. And a lot of that involves implementations of new technology and emerging technologies. But as we know, with a lot of technologies, there's a climate cost to that, or a carbon cost. And I'm wondering where you're starting to see the overlap between smart city technology efforts and then people also thinking about how do we do this sustainably. I think the example you just gave is a perfect one that kind of encapsulates those two things, kind of working hand in hand to solve a solution. But I'm sure there's lots of room for improvement, in that area, in cities around the world.

Shelby Rust Buso: Yeah, so much, I mean, I think in the mobility space in particular, we see a lot of those. We have had the pleasure of being able to go firsthand and see a few. We also just recently submitted a grant application to pilot some technologies to allow for that dynamic use of some of the curb space in San Ysidro, which is one of our border crossing communities. We are a border town, and so we want to actually pilot these technologies in some of those communities as well, because we think that's a great place to be able to try some of these technologies. 

And we're even trying for more two new parking districts also in some areas to be able to again have that funding source. We luckily also have an administration that's really open to trying new technologies. In the decarbonization space. I think, again, being able to allow access to some smart metering technology is a great way to start helping to solve access issues, as we may even be starting to have to solve for this electrification transition, and how can we be smarter and more thoughtful about that transition to all electric to maybe make sure that we're solving for unintended consequences in people's homes just to ensure that there is a just transition to this net zero emissions, especially in the residential sector.

Ally Peters: Yeah, that definitely makes sense. As we've been talking, it's just been really fun to hear about all the projects that San Diego is doing and it seems like you have experience working in other cities too, so in your experience, or even right now, are there other cities that inspire you with their sustainability efforts?

Shelby Rust Buso: Of course, I mean, all the time, we're always inspired by everybody else's work. There's so many rock stars out there in the mobility sector, we've been able to work with Madrid who has some really cool mobility hubs. We'd love to know, of course, always take everybody else's ideas and do something like that here. We've also seen some other cities in California that are starting to study some of the impacts of electrification in those low income communities, just to see how to assess that electrification transition, especially on those monthly bills and the carbon footprint impacts because we want to be mindful of those lived experiences, to balance that decarbonization for wellness and pocketbooks, et cetera. 

Vancouver has always been just kind of one of those cities that I idolize, especially when it comes to the way that they've been very transparent on their successes and their challenges. One of the things that I've looked at on their climate action planning, they're just so ambitious too, when they put their goals out, and I've always been really inspired by that. And in particular, too, with, one of the challenges that they've always put out there was on the climate budgeting, and that's something that we've tried to emulate as well with, like I said, we put out our implementation plan. But then we also put on implementation cost analysis that notes 96% of our actions that are really work, that we're already working on, and that really kind of speaks to the fact that a lot of the work that we're doing really is ingrained in our normal scope of city operations.

And I think that helps us be inspired by their work, helps us to see how we can transition our work and just do it a little bit differently. And it's those conversations with other cities where we see we're so similar too, and that we can have conversations about how we just take our normal operations and do things a little bit differently by shifting our way of thinking and by just infusing a bit of innovation into our work and changing our own mindset a little bit. And it's those partnerships that will be a little bit critical because where I'm so inspired by another city's work, I just see that we're actually doing the same things just a little bit differently by just changing or adding in a new little partnership somewhat differently. It's that last little 4% of these new programs or projects that can just exponentially change something or have an enormous impact. And that potential is really huge, and that brilliance really can make a big difference. To figure out how to meet our goals.

Kiel Hauck: You shared a really interesting point there about Vancouver as an example of someone that shares their successes, but also the challenges that they're facing. And I think that's interesting because this is really important work, time is of the essence in a lot of ways. Everybody wants to feel like they're moving forward in the right ways and making the progress that we know needs to be made. But a lot of it is having those open dialogues about where we came up short and what we learned from it and how we can do it better going forward. Do you feel like those conversations are getting easier to have? And as more cities are kind of starting to champion these kinds of efforts, will people be able to have more transparent dialogue around all of it?

Shelby Rust Buso: I think so. I think it is getting easier. I mean, things are just changing so quickly. Every day it feels like there's a new technology coming out and we're just not as afraid to fail. And again, I feel like our administration has told us that that's okay, it is okay to try something new, and we just have to be honest about it. We are throwing around big numbers again, on the climate budget front. We are saying this could cost I mean, our implementation cost analysis is throwing around numbers in the billions of what this could cost us. It's not going to be inexpensive, but that is what our annual budget is every year as well. And so we know it's slightly daunting, but it's also a big deal. And this is worth it. Our climate is important, our health is important. This is a high value impact, and our people are worth it as well. And so we want to invest in our future and so it's important for us to be talking about it and giving it the value that it's worth. And so we are trying to be out there and collaborate with our partners and have real conversations that are difficult to have, but it's also okay to share when we mess up,  because we learn from that.

Kiel Hauck: Yeah, well, you've gained a lot of experience, obviously, in the different ways that you've worked in sustainability leading up to now. I mean, if you were to think about someone kind of in your seat in another city that's less further along than maybe San Diego is.They're kind of feeling the challenges in front of them or they're trying to even take those first steps to creating a more sustainable future in the city that they operate in. What kinds of encouragement or advice would you give to somebody that is looking to take big steps forward, but knowing that they kind of have to do it little by little?

Shelby Rust Buso: Honestly, small steps are big steps, too. Is really what we all have to do every day. It is big work, but it all makes a difference. I've also been able to go to a couple places and was just over in Athens. And it can be daunting, and when real emergencies are literally at your door, and we see at the end of the day that we're all people and we're all facing these challenges together, and we have so many similarities. But I think as cities, we find that we are this interconnected web of similar people facing similar challenges, that together, no matter how small our work is, we're all doing this at the same time, that it makes a really big difference globally, and that none of us are going to be successful on our own. That it takes every single one of us doing tiny, little incremental things together. 

And so we all, at the same time, just had this moment of clarity that they felt a little overwhelmed or I felt a little overwhelmed. And it's okay, because we're not alone, even though sometimes it feels like it, that we're all kind of here to support each other. And I kind of keep in my mind sometimes I was just in awe of where I was at the moment, but I still remember there's somebody over there, just in this amazingly beautiful place, who's doing the exact same thing as I am. And there's also somebody in the middle of the country doing the exact same thing as I am. And it's all important, all at the same time, no matter the scope or scale.

Kiel Hauck: That's a really great message and, I think, a great place to wrap up the conversation. Shelby, we're so grateful to have the chance to chat with you today. Thanks for sharing some of your experience and your insights. It was a pleasure to speak with you. 

Shelby Rust Buso: With you thank you so much for having me.

Ally Peters: All right. That was a really cool conversation with Shelby Rust Buso from San Diego. Kiel, I am always just really inspired to know that cities are really doing great work towards sustainability. And to Shelby's last point, too, I feel like sometimes, even as people like myself or you who are trying to do small things in our day to day lives to be more sustainable, sometimes I'm like, okay is what I'm doing really making a difference? But it is, really knowing that my efforts to lead a more sustainable life, and knowing that other people are probably doing the same thing gives me a little bit of hope that we're really making a big difference. I was inspired by what Shelby was saying and, cool to see that feeling kind of being expressed on a larger scale, too.

Kiel Hauck: Yeah, I mean, it was a really great point she made. I mean, it's all of us, right? We're all intertwined and moving in the right direction together. It's not just about the city of San Diego or this other city or this place or that place. It's about all of us working together. And I think, a lot of what she talked about in the conversation of just that buy in that comes from the relationships that they develop in order to make these projects work is so huge because all of these things are made up of individuals that have to buy into the vision and where we're going and why we're doing it. And I think Shelby is such a great example of someone that's created a really amazing approach to how cities can think about a sustainable future. And yeah, like you said, I say inspiring on the show a lot. And I guess I'm just going to do it at this point. But that was a really inspiring conversation, and she left us with some really great words there.

Ally Peters: Yeah, absolutely.

Kiel Hauck: Well, that will do it for today's episode of Bridging the Digital Divide.  This will be a wrap on the first season of our show. Thank you for coming along for the journey so far. We're going to be back in the new year,  with more episodes of this podcast. 

In the meantime, we'd love to hear your feedback. You can leave us a review and reach out to us at hi@soofadigital.com. We'd love to hear your feedback as we prep for season two of our show. Allt, thanks for doing this. It's been fun so far.

Ally Peters: Yeah, definitely. It's been really, like you said, inspiring, but also yeah, I agree, very fun.

Kiel Hauck: And there's more to come. That's going to do it for today, and we'll catch you next time. Thanks for listening to Bridging the Digital Divide. If you enjoyed today's show, make sure to subscribe to our podcast and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. 

Ally Peters: And then come visit us at soofadigital.com to see how we're pursuing a mission to make every city smart, social and sustainable.