GreenStep Cities

Minnesota GreenStep Cities is a voluntary challenge, assistance and recognition program to help cities achieve their sustainability and quality-of-life goals. Maplewood has participated in the program since 2010. In participating, the City implements best practices in order to meet sustainability goals with support from the GreenStep Cities program and peers.  Best practices taken within the program focus on cost savings, energy use reduction, resource conservation, climate mitigation and adaptation, and the encouragement of civic innovation.  

In June 2021 Maplewood received an award for being a Step 4 and Step 5 GreenStep City! To achieve Step 4 a city must measure its best practices yearly and submit metrics by May 1. To achieve Step 5 a city must improve on at least three core metrics from year to year. In 2021 Maplewood improved on 13 sustainability best practices (from reporting year 2019 to 2020) as follows:  

• Increase of 49 trees planted on City projects (147 trees total)
• Increased the Stormwater Management Score by 10% (62% total)
• Increased the Climate Adaptation Assessment Score by 1 (74% total)
• Increased the number of LED lights in City facilities by 6% (77% total)
• Increased the number of privately owned green certified buildings by 4 (8 green buildings total)
• Reduced the average miles per gallon for City vehicles -  
  • gasoline fleet by .9 gallons (11.4 gallons total)
  • diesel fleet by .09 gallons (4.51 gallons total)
• Reduced the vehicle miles traveled per person, per day for City-wide vehicles by 1.01 miles (27.4 miles total)
• Increased the number of public electric vehicle charging stations by 22 (36 charging stations total)
• Increased the generation capacity of city-owned and private renewable energy sites by 144 kW (770 kW total)
• Reduced greenhouse gas emissions from 
  • travel 2,227 tons of CO²  (227,929 tons of CO² total)
  • waste by 735 tons of CO² (6,730 tons of CO² total)
  • non-transportation (buildings, etc.) by 43,101 tons of CO² (173,531 tons of CO² total)

Suggestions or questions - contact Shann Finwall, Environmental Planner, 651-249-2304 or email.