Biography
Charleston, South Carolina
Sustainability Director Candidate,
College of Charleston
Sean Hughes is a May 2011 Master of Public Administration honors graduate from the University of South Carolina-College of Charleston and was named Most Outstanding Graduate Student at commencement. While enrolled in graduate school he also worked for the City of Charleston Sustainability Program and he is currently being considered as Sustainability Director for the College. He served as a graduate research assistant at the Joseph P. Riley Jr. Center for Livable Communities where his assignments covered a wide range of community and environmental matters. The jobs provided him with opportunities to deal directly with components of climate change adaption, mitigation, and planning. He was responsible for conducting studies, surveys, program analysis and design for sustainable local food systems, resilient economic and education development, municipal scale energy efficiency loan programs, energy efficiency programs, weatherization processes, climate change planning, and grant writing.
He played a crucial role in designing CharlestonSaves, a municipal energy efficiency loan program aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy use and was instrumental in raising start-up funding for it. He also assisted in the formation of the Green Business Challenge and edited the city’s first sustainability plan.
He is very eager to participate in the Climate Change Professional Fellow program because he hopes to build upon his existing knowledge base and past experiences in preparing communities for the effects of climate change through the exchange of ideas and strategies from the projects leaders and partners in the East Asia and Pacific regions so that he may bring that experience and knowledge back to the United States, and his community. He believes that sea level rise and fresh water availability are two extremely important areas that will be impacted by climate change and that they will directly affect his community of Charleston, South Carolina. A sea level rise of just 2-3 feet would be absolutely devastating to local wildlife, ecosystems and existing developed property in the absence of sufficient mitigation or adaption efforts. He is also concerned that the immense challenge of fresh water availability, if not dealt with, may ultimately provoke water rights battles, crop failures and eventual large scale animal and human migrations.