Business View Magazine - October 2018

188 189 BVM: What is the primarily role of Sustainable CT? Stoddard: “To sum it up, our role is supporting, accelerating, and recognizing sustainable actions by Connecticut towns.We feel that the local level is a very powerful place to create change. Sus- tainable CT supports our towns in becoming thriving , inclusive communities where people want to live, work, and play “To get certified, a town must do one ac- tion in each of our nine categories, including transportation, local economies, planning and zoning, land preservation, arts and culture, housing, equitable community development, and natural resources. It’s broad, flexible, and all voluntary. Towns can get credit for actions they’ve taken before the program launched be- cause we want to give them visibility as great examples. “Most towns are creating a sustainability team to help implement the actions, to see if they already have points for any of those ac- tions and to take advantage of the many re- sources. In many cases, these towns also have an economic development committee, maybe a solid waste committee, etc. and they’re saying that Sustainable CT is serving as a platform for uniting all their committees around a common framework. For example, the agriculture com- mittee might be working on agriculture-friend- ly policies and that’s part of the Sustainable SUSTAINABLE CT CT actions. And the economic development com- mittee might be promoting buying from local businesses – that counts for points. It’s been really interesting to hear municipal leaders say it’s helped their towns coordinate different siloed committees.” BVM: Does the program spur networking among different communities? Stoddard: “That’s one of the founding principles of the program.We want to encourage multi- town collaboration and working regionally. Many of the actions are more effective if you work with multiple towns – like a watershed plan that extends beyond the town boundaries, and transportation initiatives. We’re encouraging towns to work together on implementation. Each town gets full points for the action even if it was completed by multiple towns. “For instance: I had an email from a town that shares a regional middle school and high school. They both have solar panels and the town asked how that works for points. Three towns are attending the schools and they all contribute, based on student ratios. It’s a great example of solar in use on those schools – all the towns collaborated and will get full points. We think that towns learn best from each other. “Our website is designed with a map of Con- necticut that has dots for towns that have registered. Click on the dot for that town and you can see every action they’ve done and the materials they uploaded to substantiate that. Hartford, for example, created a Complete Streets policy. You can click on their city, read the policy, and see how Hartford has show- cased what they’re doing. And other towns can learn and adapt it for their own use. So, peer learning is an important aspect of the program.” BVM: How many towns are registered and how do you communicate with them?