MiSustainable Holland: Sustainability work earns 'gold' status for Holland
The city of Holland has achieved the Michigan Green Communities Challenge Gold Certification for the second year in a row.
This annual, statewide program includes several categories of action items for tracking progress towards sustainability. It's organized by Michigan Green Communities, a sustainability networking program aimed at guiding and supporting communities in their journeys to create a more environmentally and economically sustainable future.
By completing the action items, any local government that participates earns points that determine gold, silver or bronze certification. Comparisons between Michigan communities are expected as participants track sustainability progress and work toward certification.
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Categories for certification include planning for inclusive and lasting impacts, improving health outcomes, and supporting clean and inclusive mobility — among others. The mix of environment-focused and human-focused topics encompasses what sustainability strives to do: Ensuring the healthiest outcome for all.
By incorporating sustainable practices into local government, human needs can be met without compromising environmental health. The action items of each category are beneficial steps for communities to take to ensure advancements in sustainability.
Action items include everything from composting and renewable energy deployment to clean motorized vehicles and healthy indoor environments. Focusing on measurable goals allows for visible progress and increased environmental-minded innovation.
The city of Holland was one of 22 municipalities, out of 46 applicants, to achieve gold status. The challenge includes nine categories with 43 subcategories, and Holland has shown progress in almost all of them.
The most progress was seen in the energy efficiency and renewable energy category, which includes seven subcategories and 24 action items. Holland completed 10 action items in 2021 and seven more are underway.
To complete these, Holland updated its existing Community Energy Plan. The plan focuses on finding alternatives to energy generation by fossil fuels and allows the city to put the environment at the forefront without sacrificing its competitiveness and reliability as an energy supplier.
The development of community-wide programs to promote energy efficiency makes Holland a greener city overall.
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Holland’s creation of its curbside recycling program, a full-time sustainability manager position and replacing traffic lights with LEDs also crossed action items off the list.
Holland focused heavily on the education portion of multiple categories, making sure the community had the information needed to create a more sustainable place to live, visit and work. It distributed information on composting, water conservation and recycling programs to business owners and homeowners through the city newsletter, local news outlets, mail stuffers and the city website.
The city also trained parks and recreation staff on sustainability principles. Educating the community on sustainability-related topics leads to a deeper understanding of what sustainability entails and why it's important.
Achievement of gold level certification supports Holland’s efforts to make progress on even more sustainability projects and contribute to a sustainable community for years to come.
— Isabel Stein is a sustainability intern for the city of Holland.