City of Orlando – Evelyn Sellers – 2025
Summary
Evie Sellers advanced the City of Orlando’s sustainability goals through projects related to climate resilience, energy, and food security.
Goals
The City of Orlando, Florida is a leader in local government sustainability and resilience efforts, continuously working towards ambitious goals such as attaining 100% renewable city-wide electricity generation by 2050 and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2040. Evie Sellers contributed to these goals through policy and community engagement work related to climate resilience, energy, food security, and environmental justice.
Solutions
Climate Resilience Evie’s work included creating a deployment plan for the REACH Mobile Climate Resilience Hub, analyzing alternative transportation incentive programs to advance multimodal mobility across the city, and developing an implementation plan for a Community Development Block Grant that will provide 100 laptops to low-income community members. Energy Evie worked on two projects aimed at increasing compliance with a city energy benchmarking ordinance. The first of these projects was the development of an Energy Champions recognition program, and the second was a series of updates and redesigns to the annual ordinance compliance status letters sent to building owners. Additionally, Evie drafted a briefing sheet on floating solar to be presented to policymakers and the public as this technology becomes more common in Orlando. Food Security Evie consistently engaged in fieldwork at the City’s many community gardens and urban farms over the course of her fellowship. Evie also piloted the use of the REACH hub to increase food security, using the hub to distribute freshly gleaned produce.
Potential Impact
Evie’s work provides the City of Orlando with a variety of tools to be used in their work towards City-wide climate and sustainability goals. Her projects have the potential for increased City-wide climate resilience with attention to environmental justice, financial savings, and widespread emission reductions. All of Evie’s projects address crucial environmental, economic, or social concerns in the Orlando community in a way that is informed by research, community participation, and a desire to create a greener, cleaner, and more just city and world for everyone.
