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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 2020 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 2020 Maplewood improved on 12 sustainability best practices (from reporting year 2018 to 2019) as follows:
| GreenStep Cities Best Practice | Improvement |
kBtu (electricity) of City buildings | 3.54 kBtu reduction | |
2. | Avg miles per gallon City vehicles | 0.30 mpg reduction in City vehicles (City vehicles fueled by gasoline use less per mile than previous year) |
3. | Number of electric vehicle charging stations | 4 additional charging stations |
4. | Number of new trees planted in public spaces | 42 additional trees planted on right of ways and parks |
5. | Gallons of residential drinking water | 6 gallons less per household than last year |
6. | Impaired waters | 1 less impaired water (Beaver Lake delisted in 2019) |
7. | Solid waste composted | 28% increase in compost being recycled |
8. | Number of solar panel sites | 20 additional solar panel sites throughout the city |
9. | Generation capacity of solar sites | 102 kW hours of additional solar generation for all sites throughout the city |
10. | Energy used for street lights | 150,651 kwh per year reduction of energy use for street lights and traffic signals |
11. | Number of LED lights in City facilities | 4% increase in LED lights in city facilities |
12. | Greenhouse gas assessment for City operations | 18% reduction in GHG |