Business View Magazine - October 2018

186 187 SUSTAINABLE CT review, with generous support from the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, Hampshire Founda- tion, and Common Sense Fund. In an interview with Business View Magazine, Stoddard speaks about the positive impact that Sustainable CT is having on Connecticut towns. The following is an edited transcript of that conversation. BVM: How did Sustainable CT come about and how do communities engage in the program? Stoddard: “Sustainable CT was launched in Nov. 2017, but we were in development for 18 months before that. A vision was set by many municipal leaders, elected officials, and other stakeholders throughout the state to create a program to accelerate, support, and recognize sustainable actions by Connecticut towns. Sus- tainable CT is a roadmap of best practices that towns can take to assist with liveability, resil- ience, efficiency, improving the local economy, arts and culture, transportation - sustainability defined very broadly. “In addition, we provide resources – technical and financial support, tools, and partnership with experts – to help towns implement the actions. The third piece is recognition. Towns select the actions they want to take from the action menu, and earn points for successfully implementing each action.When they accu- mulate a certain threshold, they can apply for Sustainable CT certification. The deadline for submitting applications for certification in 2018 was August 24. At the end of October, we’ll celebrate the accomplishments of the certified towns at the Annual Convention of the Con- necticut Conference of Municipalities, which is one of our core partners.” BVM: Is there a cost for towns to participate? Stoddard: “There is no cost. In fact, we give a lot of free support to towns when they join the program. In early 2019, we’ll launch a munici- pal grants program to help towns accomplish actions; right now, the support is in the form of free consulting services, workshops, and assis- tance from us and various partners for imple- menting actions.”