100 Days Reflections from Kim Stevenson
Completing my first 100 days as the Chief Executive Officer of New Ecology, Inc., I would like to take this time to reflect upon this organization’s work and my role in it. For those of you who don’t know me yet, my name is Kim Stevenson. Prior to joining New Ecology in February, I served as Managing Director of Strategic Initiatives at Inclusive Prosperity Capital (IPC), a non-profit, mission-driven financial organization focused on financing clean energy and resiliency in underserved markets.
I also spent six years as the Director of Multifamily Housing at the Connecticut Green Bank, where my team designed and implemented loan programs for apartment buildings, condominiums, and cooperatives. My education is in physics and urban planning. Throughout my 30-year career I have worked at the nexus of housing, community development, and the environment, where I have held leadership roles in the government, non-profit, and private sectors. I am passionate about healing our Earth to support future generations and, through this work, create opportunity, wealth and healthier, more resilient, equitable communities where all can thrive.
Slowly but surely, I have spoken individually with each of New Ecology’s 56 employees! This is an exceptional group of multidisciplinary professionals with diverse backgrounds including building science, architecture, engineering, energy modeling, healthy home design, sustainability and resiliency, in addition to urban planning, housing and community development, landscape architecture, conservation biology, and regenerative approaches to healing Earth’s ecosystems. Their vision and personal missions to support sustainable community development and advance climate justice from our home cities of Boston, MA, Baltimore, MD, and Wilmington, DE, as well as nationally, is impressive and inspirational.
I have also been meeting and collaborating with key partners and stakeholders who share New Ecology’s mission and vision. Key amongst these are Elevate and the Relay Network, a national network of energy efficiency implementors who promote knowledge sharing, facilitate collaborative partnerships, and encourage joint innovation. We will all be stronger through collaboration, leveraging our mutual strengths, networks, and geographic reaches to meet our common goals.
Moving forward, we are completing a strategic planning process that will focus New Ecology on our next stage of evolution. This important initiative is a collaborative effort that includes staff, our board, key strategic partners, and advisors. Achieving New Ecology’s mission of equitable, community-based sustainable development is complex and challenging. We have a national affordable housing crisis and global climate crisis, with historically marginalized folks most impacted by climate change and in the path of greatest harm. There is also a huge opportunity to transform communities and neighborhoods by preserving or creating new healthy, safe, high-performing buildings along with green jobs that provide a path for economic growth and generational wealth building. We are at a historic moment with catalytic awareness and resources created by the Federal Inflation Reduction Act as well as ambitions, well-funded state and municipal initiatives in places like Massachusetts and Boston. To this end, New Ecology will continue to grow our work as one of the nation’s leading Passive House consultants, as well as our nationally recognized work in decarbonizing affordable multifamily housing.
New Ecology’s strategic planning process will help us take a more holistic approach to our work to meet these challenges and opportunities. We will also take a deep and honest look at the equity and climate justice goals we aspire to, and the evolution needed to achieve these goals. We must mindfully ensure we are supporting and collaborating to build and transform healthy, resilient, thriving communities. This work will be key in stewarding New Ecology through our next phase of growth: scaling our work to have more impact on more people, bringing the benefits of sustainable development to the community level.
-Kim Stevenson
New Ecology Chief Executive Officer