The US Green Building Council Missouri Gateway Chapter awarded its 2016 Growing Green Awards on March 31, and the city of Maplewood won the Emerging Leader award.
Maplewood was nominated along with the city of Creve Coeur, city of St. Louis Building Division, and Leslie Garner – Hastings+Chivetta Architects.
Executive Director Emily Andrews said Thursday that two things about Maplewood stood out to the judges.
“A lot of that has to do in the work that they’ve done establishing city-wide sustainability practices,” she said. “A lot of focus on solid waste management, recycling — diverting waste from the landfill, for recycling and composting — specifically around the green dining district established in Maplewood, which is the first green dining district in the country.”
She said the judges also liked what Maplewood has done around the green power community, an Environmental Protection Agency program that encourages people to replace regular power use with green power, using solar panels or renewable energy credits.
She said the goal was to have three percent of Maplewood’s power coming from green power and the city doubled that, with six percent.
Andrews also said “the community-wide work that’s going on around sustainability around Maplewood was impressive to our judges as well.”
An example of that would be the planned new Maplewood firehouse, whick will be LEED certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).
Just one more display of what makes Maplewood such a great place to live!