Hello! My name is Adrian Huq, and I recently wrapped up my role this summer as a Sustainable CT Fellow working with the municipalities in Connecticut’s capitol region. This has been my second summer at CRCOG, but my fourth with Sustainable CT overall (shoutout to Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments, where I spent my first two years)!
Aside from assisting municipalities with applying or working towards Sustainable CT certification (Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Climate Leader Designation) and connecting them to our resources, I also helped out with CRCOG projects, such as a flier promoting the services of the Central Connecticut Solid Waste Authority, drafting guiding questions for our upcoming iteration of community-led discussions called Table Talk and researching potential hosts, and comparing the emissions reduction strategies in the Priority Climate Action Plans of the greater Hartford, New Haven, and Bridgeport metropolitan areas. As part of a full-group Fellows project, I helped collect data on organics diversion initiatives in the CRCOG region through a survey and targeted email outreach.
I was also able to attend a couple of events with CRCOG staff, including a press conference in Hartford about the problem of hydrilla (an invasive aquatic species) and a tour of the Town of ManchesterTransfer Station to learn about their newly launched residential food scrap collection program. The Fellows cohort also went on an educational tour of the Connecticut State Capitol, a community walking tour of Fair Haven, and the Sustainable CT Spring into Summer event to celebrate the spring certified towns at @Wickham Park, including our very own Town of Ellington, CT and the town of Marlborough. Given my background in communications, it was a pleasure to collect content from each of these events, help do a Sustainable CT Instagram takeover, and to co-host the July episode of the IMPACT podcast about campus sustainability and activism.
I’m proud of all the towns in our region that applied for certification this round, and I enjoyed assisting several of our smaller towns. To hear the results, you’ll just have to wait and see this fall! Save the date for the annual Sustainable CT Awards Celebration hosted at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center in Old Saybrook on November 13, 2024.
Thank you to CRCOG and Sustainable CT for another great summer! Following this fellowship, I will begin graduate school at the @Yale School of the Environment in pursuit of a Master of Environmental Management. Go Bulldogs! #YSE #CRCOGWho
