@ MN Pollution Control Agency. Minnesota Greenstep Cities Web Design Project

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1 @ MN Pollution Control Agency Minnesota Greenstep Cities Web Design Project NASCIO 2012 Recognition Award Category: Cross-Boundary Collaboration and Partnerships Category Contact: Philipp Muessig, State of Minnesota Project Initiation: January, 2010 Project Completion: December, 2011

2 Executive Summary Officially launched in June 2010, Minnesota GreenStep Cities is a challenge, assistance, and recognition program designed to give Minnesota cities a majority of them small and rural a one-stop web site with tools and links to assistance providers that makes it easier to implement 28 sustainability best practices grouped into five categories: buildings, land use, transportation, environmental management, and economic and community development. A partnership between the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), local non-profits, the Department of Commerce Division of Energy Resources and the League of Minnesota Cities created the program. Two years into the program, 46 city councils have approved resolutions of commitment. Three aspects make this program stand out from others and give it strength: An innovative, beyond-compliance approach to solving environmental issues A broad public-private partnership that created and operates the program A user-based, database driven web site emphasizing transparency and results that currently contains over 800 city action reports The MPCA and its not-for-profit partners in the GreenStep Cities program the Urban Land Institute Minnesota (ULI MN), the Great Plains Institute (GPI), the Izaak Walton League-MN Chapter, and the Clean Energy Resource Teams (CERTs) have extensive experience delivering technical assistance. Techniques include public and stakeholder meetings, design charrettes (intensive planning sessions in which citizens, designers and others collaborate on a vision for development), walking tours, on-site workshops, interactive web tools, developing model ordinances and best practices, training, and direct assistance to city staff. With 15 years of experience in providing outreach and technical assistance to foster sustainable communities, MPCA has found that cities of all sizes and in all regions of Minnesota can benefit from these types of assistance, which are highlighted throughout the GreenStep Cities web site. Environmental Initiative, a twenty-year old Minnesota organization that builds partnerships to develop collaborative solutions to environmental problems, recently recognized the GreenStep Cities program as its 2012 sustainable communities winner, and as its 2012 partnership of the year. The Minnesota GreenStep Cities web site is at 2

3 Business Problem and Solution Description of the Business Problem During fall 2007, Minnesota's Clean Energy Resource Teams (CERTS) held regional listening sessions around the state to discuss community-based energy opportunities, the state's Next Generation Energy Act of 2007, and how cities could contribute to meeting the aggressive state energy goals. The idea was raised to create a sustainable cities program, free to cities that would challenge, assist and recognize cities that were "green stars." This idea was taken up by the 2008 Legislature, which directed the MPCA, the Division of Energy Resources and CERTS to recommend actions cities could take on a voluntary basis at their own pace. Representatives from dozens of cities, non-profit organizations, businesses and state government agencies provided the outline for what has been developed as the Minnesota GreenStep Cities program, which opened for city participation in June Key issues grappled with in developing the program were: Among the many choices for taking action leading toward greater city sustainability, where might cities start? How can tools for taking action be better linked to actions so city staff can find them? Who has taken actions in Minnesota, and what constitutes completion of an action at a minimal and advanced level? What are the benefits of taking actions, and how might cities measure them? The Technical Solution In an age when program staff no longer mail out photocopies of program guidance, printed manuals, etc., the GreenStep program needed to be web-based and contain: Basic program information: what, who and why is GreenStep Cities? Technical information for taking action: manuals, assistance organizations and individuals, benefits calculators, sample ordinances and contracts, case studies, etc. A way to easily and quickly change content: for program refinement and evolutuion. User (city) inputted reports: enough details to inform and inspire other cities to replicate best practice actions. With less than one full-time program staff at MPCA to manage the GreenStep Cities program, a database-driven, user content-supplied website was created. Two Agile software development efforts were undertaken: January to June 2010 to create the web site, and September to December 2011 to refine it. The second Agile project was based upon feedback solicited from the first 24 cities that signed city council resolutions to join 3

4 the GreenStep Cities program, and upon an analysis of city actions reported. Due to the in-house expertise of MPCA information systems staff, the GreenStep Cities web site has performed superbly and is rated very highly by user cities. The program partners created a structure for cities to take specific environmental actions and to document those actions, which number 168 and are grouped under 28 GreenStep Cities best practices. The best practices focus on cost savings and energy use reduction that lead cities beyond environmental compliance and encourage a culture of civic innovation. While energy remains a focus of the program, the solution to engaging cities hinged upon including a broad range of sustainability issues such as water, land use, transportation, community and economic development. Including a broad range of sustainability issues on one web site encourages cities to think in a more holistic manner and to take actions which accomplish multiple goals at once. The GreenStep Cities program centers around 28 best practices. Each best practice has its own page which contains: A description of the best practice, the benefits of implementing it and calculators for measuring benefits, relevant state policy, and a best practice advisor to call on for help in deciding how to implement the best practice. A list of four to eight best practice actions tailored for Minnesota cities that offer options for how cities can: adopt ordinances and policies; spend money and run assistance programs; provide education/information to community members/businesses; and facilitate action by others. A tabs view for each action that reveals: o Implementation tools targeted to helping a city complete each action Because these resources are stored and displayed by a database, updating them is easy and done frequently as (1) we find better ones more finely tuned to making it easier for cities to take actions, and (2) as an automated crawler tests each web site resource daily and reports bad links for correction. o Guidance text that can be easily modified for understanding what constitutes completion of each action at a one-star, two-star and three-star level o Dynamically produced reports by cities that describe how they completed the action, any outcome measures, any key assistance partners, and who to contact for more information The screen shot below calls out how program goals are met by various web features. 4

5 Free, simple Google web search tool Portal for adding information Social media links Portal to the heart of the program Programmatic rules of the road Current, relevant news on topics & events related to the program and creating sustainable cities Dynamic list and map of participating cities; click on a city name for implemented best practice reports Phone/ contact info Summary table of cities, implemented best practices The city log-in portal on the GreenStep Cities home page allows each city to add/edit information detailing how specific best practice actions have been completed. Action information includes web links and PDFs, any key collaborators with whom the city worked, and the name, and phone number of a person at the city from whom other cities can learn more. The log-in page also allows the MPCA web administrator to post news items, add new cities, recognize a city s step (accomplishment) level and star-level completion of each best practice action, and to modify the content of each best practice page. The content from four best practice pages is shown on the next page, highlighting the three tabs of information for each best practice action: The full Local Food best practice page shows all best practice actions (1-4) for this best practice. 5

6 A Renewable Energy best practice action page is open to the tools tab for that action. A Mobility Options action page is open to the star guidance tab for that action. A New Green Buildings action page is open to the city action report tab for that action. 6

7 Significance This project is a major element in fulfilling the MPCA s and the State of Minnesota s commitment to data transparency and new tools to improve our ability to protect Minnesota s environment. The web site allows cities and the public to easily access data and compare the success of actions across Minnesota cities. Participating cities offer a very public view of their accomplishments. This data availability also increases public understanding of the work encouraged by and assisted by the MPCA. Though we are at an early stage in the development of the GreenStep Cities program, we feel that the wealth of information on what cities are doing can facilitate more creative discussions about strategies and priorities as the MPCA continues to evolve in the way we work to create a more sustainable Minnesota. Benefits Environmental Results: Addressing environmental issues at the local level places cities in a better position to inform, educate and change citizen/business behavior and can effect significant improvements to water, air and land. MPCA Effectiveness: This project integrates key assistance programs that support key regulatory programs, thus strengthening our ability to comprehensively address complex environmental problems. Transparency: Completion of the project is a major step toward the MPCA s goal of making 100 percent of its public data available to the public. Operational Efficiency: Before this project, the MPCA had no means to collect and analyze city sustainability data. The ability now exists to manage a statewide database with approximately 0.75 of a full-time equivalent. This is a significant return on investment given the amount of resources it would take to accomplish the same results without web-based tools. Better Quality of Service: Cities now have immediate access to continuously updated web resources and designated people who can assist them with any of the GreenStep Cities best practices. Data Quality: By making the data easily available to the public, the MPCA is able to utilize local knowledge to improve the quality of its assistance efforts. Self Service: Members of the public interested in learning more about cities are able to access a wide variety of information whenever and wherever they want. The ability to browse the information themselves allows them to discover and build knowledge in ways that would not be possible using a manual information request process. The ability for MPCA staff to download data provides many more options for analysis. 7