Brooklyn Park Joins Minnesota GreenStep Cities Program
Brooklyn Park is joining an effort to improve sustainability and energy efficiency in the city. It’s an effort that not only aims to meet environmental goals, but also help save taxpayer money.
Brooklyn Park joined about 140 other cities and tribal nations across the state in implementing the GreenStep Cities Sustainability Program. The free program is led by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and several partner organizations.
By joining the GreenStep program, it will help the city reach several of its 2025 goals of saving energy, resources and money.
Brooklyn Park is a step 1 city, which means they passed the resolution. To become a step 2 city, they have to benchmark things they are already doing. Steps 3,4 and 5 cities will start setting goals on how to become more sustainable and efficient and then reach those goals.
“We have already done a number of things to become more efficient,” said Tim Pratt, the city’s recycling manager. “We have installed LED street lighting. We have added the solar ray over at city facilities and now we’ll be looking for other ways to improve efficiency.”
Brooklyn Park also issues loans and rebates to residents who make energy efficient updates and appliance purchases. Through these efforts, the city saved taxpayers about $50,000 in annual energy costs.
