Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

Contact: Jodi Boyne, 651-757-2241 Saint Paul, Minn. -- The cities of Bloomington, Edina, Falcon Heights, St. Louis Park and Victoria will participate in a project to model best practices in sustainability in buildings, transportation, land use planning and environmental management. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) and the Urban Land Institute Minnesota today announced that the five cities have been selected to be GreenStep Demonstration Cities. The project starts this fall and concludes in 2010. The GreenStep Cities program aims to provide cities a pathway to greater sustainability based on implementing best practices specific to Minnesota. The voluntary program offers cost-effective steps that focus on greenhouse gas reductions. During the demonstration project, the Urban Land Institute Minnesota and MPCA will work with the five demonstration cities to test these best practices and assess how effective they are in real-life application, both in terms of their environmental benefit and cost-effectiveness. Three dozen best practices are currently under development and will be available for all Minnesota cities in early 2010. Information learned during the demonstration project will be used to revise the best practices when the full program is launched in the summer of 2010. For more information on the project, contact Bill Sierks, Manager, MPCA at 651-757-2722 or bill.sierks@state.mn.us.