Anu Verma

Anuradha Verma is the secretary of Accelerate Climate Solutions and a contributing member of the Naperville Environment and Sustainability Task Force (NEST) Waste and School District Engagement teams. She is also part of a grassroots organization based out of Chicago called Organizing for Plastic Alternatives (OPA), working to reduce plastic pollution. Her volunteer work doesn’t end there. She is using her passion for waste reduction to advocate for passage of a bottle bill in Illinois, working with Coalition for Plastic Reduction (CPR), Illinois Environmental Council (IEC), and Beyond Plastics on these efforts. 

 

Born, raised, and educated in India, she recalls sustainability as an inherently Indian thought process. Indian Vedic philosophy asks you to respect what you have, conserve it, and give back to nature. Her father, a medical practitioner in New Delhi, was her role model in conscious consumption and provided a strong educational backbone to all his three kids. 

 

She holds two bachelors, two masters, and a doctorate degree in biology from Delhi University, India. Currently working part-time in healthcare, Anu brings sustainable solutions and zero waste conversations to her workplace. 

 

She brings these ideas to her neighborhood too. In 2020 she started a community compost program and also held zero-waste block parties, emphasizing the fact that a circular economy is a possibility and that there is no waste in nature. 

 

She lives in Naperville with a very ambitious husband and 90 year old mum-in-law and getting over the fact that her three kids are all grown up now.