Recognized by President Obama as a White House 2016 Champion of Change for her work on climate equity and resilience, Kristin Baja is the climate and resilience planner in Baltimore City’s Office of Sustainability. She is charged with proactive planning and implementation efforts related to climate, as well as development of the city’s Disaster Preparedness Project and Plan to more effectively respond and recover from natural disasters. Baja takes a bottom-up, equity-focused approach to enhancing individual and community preparedness, strengthening neighborhood resiliency, and improving infrastructure, buildings, and natural systems.

Her most significant recent project is the development of resiliency hubs in historically neglected neighborhoods across the country. Each hub serves as an opportunity to work at the intersection of racial equity, climate resilience, and greenhouse gas mitigation. Rather than focusing on technological approaches and solutions, Resilience Hubs center on enhancing quality of life, strengthening community connectivity, and developing respectful relationships with the surrounding environment as their foundation. “These community-owned and managed buildings community-serving facilities augmented to support residents, coordinate communication, distribute resources, and reduce carbon pollution while enhancing quality of life. They provide an opportunity for local governments to acknowledge broken systems, like redlining, and work on corrective action by shifting power to residents and community-based organizations to determine their own needs, identify how to meet those needs,” she said.

The hubs are one of several initiatives Baja leads that focus on reducing the vulnerability of underserved populations and ensuring they have an ongoing role in planning and implementation efforts. She also manages Baltimore’s #EveryStoryCounts community communications campaign, which highlights residents’ personal stories that are making Baltimore a more sustainable and resilient city.

“Climate change is happening now,” she said. “We are seeing devastating impacts to social, economic, and environmental systems worldwide. Now is the time for bold thinking and innovative solutions that will significantly accelerate climate resilience and empower communities to anticipate, accommodate, and positively adapt to or thrive amid changing climate conditions.”