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Create or participate in a marketing/outreach/incentive program to promote/achieve residential energy/water use reduction and energy efficiency.

Adopt a comprehensive plan or (for Category B & C cities) adopt a future land use plan that was adopted by the county or a regional entity.

Adopt climate mitigation and/or energy independence goals and objectives in the comprehensive plan or in a separate policy document, and include transportation recommendations such as becoming an EV-ready city.

Provide incentives for affordable housing, workforce housing, infill projects, or for life-cycle housing at or near job or retail centers, or for achieving an average net residential density of seven units per acre.

Use design to create social trust and interaction among neighbors and allow developments that meet the prerequisites for LEED for Neighborhood Development certification.

Organize or participate in a community planning/placemaking/design process for the city/a mixed-use district, including specific community engagement practices that engage cultural and income diverse community members.

Locate or lease a property for use as a school, city building or other government facility that has at least two of these attributes:

Report that a (re)development meets a city/community-determined minimum point threshold under the Equitable Development Scorecard or LEED-ND (Neighborhood Development).

Create incentives for vertical mixed-use development in appropriate locations (downtown, commercial districts near colleges or universities, historic commercial districts, commercial districts with minority-owned businesses).

Adopt infrastructure design standards that protect the economic and ecologic functions of the highway corridor through clustering of development, native plantings and incorporating access management standards.

Adopt a complete streets policy, or a living streets policy, which addresses landscaping and stormwater.

Identify, prioritize and remedy complete streets gaps and lack of connectivity/safety within your road network by, for example, bike/pedestrian plan, adding a bike route/lane, truck route, sidewalk or mid-block alley.

Increase walking, biking and transit use by one or more of the following means:

Conduct an Active Living campaign such as a Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program.

Prominently promote mobility options: public transit; paratransit/Dial-A-Ride; cab services; rental cars; bike lanes; trails; airports.

Promote carpooling, ridesharing, carsharing, and bikesharing. 

Add/expand public transit service.

Establish purchasing preferences that support local, Minority, Disability, and Women-Owned businesses and, working with a local business association, develop a list of locally-produced products and suppliers for common purchases.

Budget for and achieve resilient urban canopy/tree planting goals.

Maximize tree planting along your main downtown street or throughout the city.

Conduct a tree inventory or canopy study for public and private trees.

Achieve minimum levels of city green space and maximize the percent within a ten-minute walk of community members.

Conduct or support multi-party community conversations, assessments, plans and actions around improving local water quality and quantity.

Reduce residential burning of wood and yard waste and eliminate ‘backyard’ trash burning.

Install, assist with and promote publicly available EV charging stations or public fueling stations for alternative fuel vehicles. 

Inclusive and Coordinated Decision-Making: Use a city commission or committee to lead, coordinate, report to and engage community members on the identification and equitable implementation of sustainability best practices.

Communicating Progress on Goals: Organize goals/outcome measures from all city plans (social, environmental, economic) and report to community members data that show progress toward meeting these goals.

Measuring Outcomes: Engage community members and partners in identifying, measuring, and reporting progress on key sustainability and social indicators/ including energy use/greenhouse gas emissions, social vitality/social inclusion outcome measures.

Public Education for Action: Conduct or support a broad sustainability education and action campaign, building on existing community relationships, networks & events involving:

Planning with a Purpose: Conduct a community visioning and planning initiative that engages a diverse set of community members & stakeholders and uses a sustainability, resilience, or environmental justice framework such as:

Engaging the Next Generation: Engage wide representation of community youth and college students by creating opportunities to participate in city government (including commissions).

Expanding Community Engagement: Engage Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), renters, low-income, new Americans, differently abled and other traditionally under-represented community members by encouragement, and support to participate in current and new opportunities in city government.

Promote resident/business purchases and/or generation of clean energy by:

Promote financing and incentive programs, such as PACE, for clean energy:

Support a community solar garden or help community members participate in a community solar project by:

Protect working landscapes - agriculture and forestry - by adopting an ordinance or incentivizing one or more of the following:

Facilitate creation of home/community gardens, chicken & bee keeping, and incorporation of food growing areas/access in multifamily and residential developments.

Create, assist with and promote local food production/distribution within the city:

Measurably increase institutional buying and sales of foods and fibers that are local, Minnesota-grown, organic, healthy, humanely raised, and grown by fairly compensated growers.

Assess, plan for, and enhance the community’s local food system.

Prepare to maintain public health and safety during extreme weather and climate-change-related events, while also taking a preventive approach to reduce risk for community members.

Integrate climate resilience into city or tribal planning, policy, operations, and budgeting processes.

Increase social connectedness through engagement, capacity building, public investment, and opportunities for economically vulnerable residents to improve their economic prosperity and resilience to climate change.

Encourage private sector action and incentivize investment in preventive approaches that reduce risk and minimize impacts of extreme weather and the changing climate for human health and the built environment.

Protect public buildings and natural/constructed infrastructure to reduce physical damage and sustain their function during extreme weather events.

Reduce the urban heat impacts of public buildings, sites, and infrastructure and provide resiliency co-benefits.

Improve local energy resilience by minimizing fuel poverty, installing distributed renewable energy systems, and developing microgrids that can improve energy system resiliency.