Correction: This article has been updated with the correct name of the Prairie Elementary Green Team parent sponsor Melinda Lewis.
Prairie Village is exploring ways to make its city operations more environmentally sustainable.
The city council earlier this month unanimously approved an agreement with Keramida, an Indiana-based consulting firm, to create a sustainability program for Prairie Village.
The move aims to help the city reach its commitment to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 or sooner, according to city documents.
The $50,000 agreement is funded out of the 2023 budget through a decision package, a council-requested budget item that was submitted last April.
Each department will be audited for sustainability
- The city’s sustainability plan should include short and long term “goals for municipal activities,” according to city documents.
- Councilmember Greg Shelton, the city’s environmental committee co-chair, said the first step will be to sit down with each city department for a complete audit of operations to see where changes could be made.
- This will include the parks and recreation department, Shelton said, to see what may be done to make Prairie Village’s parks system more sustainable.
An entire list of what Prairie Village wants out of a sustainability program, which is what the partnership should produce, is found on pages 76 and 77 of the document below.
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Open in new tab This aims to be more thorough than 2020 emissions study
- Kansas City-based firm Dynamhex tracked the city’s greenhouse gas emissions for one year in 2020.
- The company, which city staff says has since been acquired by a different company, created an interactive map for residents to see their individual houshold carbon footprints.
- Councilmember Piper Reimer, another environmental committee co-chair, said the Keramida partnership is much further reaching than what the city “had ever expected from Dynamhex.”
- “What we hoped to get with Dynamhex when we entered that contract was data, not just for the city, but also a tool that might help the residents [to] provide them more information so they can make more informed choices,” Reimer said. “What we have contract with Keramida for is something far, far beyond, much further reaching, than what we had ever expected with Dynamhex.”
Student group supports Keramida partnership
- The Prairie Elementary Green Team, a student-led group at the Prairie Village elementary school, wants to lower the school’s carbon footprint.
- Two Green Team members and their parent sponsor Melinda Lewis spoke in support of the Keramida partnership at the March 6 city council meeting.
- “Prairie Village’s investment to collect the data that we need to inform the decisions that we must face is a signal to all Prairie Villagers, especially my four favorite young ones, that you’re also committed to pursuing policy for a livable climate and a healthy future,” Lewis said.
What happens next:
- The project will start with meetings with city staff to to create goals, tasks and timelines, according to city documents.
- Keramida will then conduct a sustainability data review and take inventory of greenhouse gas emissions.
- The company will also create a greenhouse gas reduction roadmap and, eventually, put together a list of actions the city needs “to take to advance resilience and sustainability.”
