Sustainability Plan Adopted by DG Village Council
- Michelle Weed
- Apr 9
- 5 min read
written by Steve Ruffolo, Ken Lerner, Michelle Weed
The Downers Grove Village Council has unanimously approved the draft Environmental Sustainability Plan (ESP), concluding a two-year effort that began with adopting the Greenest Region Compact, hiring a Sustainability Coordinator, and reviving the Environmental Concerns Commission (ECC).
After more than a year of public meetings, stakeholder interviews, surveys, open houses, workshops and other activities, the Village’s first Environmental Sustainability Plan (ESP) was formally adopted at the April 8th, 2025 Village Council meeting. This effort by Council, Village Staff, their consultant GZA, the Environmental Concerns Commission with the public support and input from Greener Grove, the Pierce Downer Heritage Alliance, the Downers Grove Organic Gardeners and others, generated a document that will guide our community forward along a more sustainable and environmentally-friendly path.
As was stated many times by Council members during the meeting, the adoption of this plan represents a realignment and cultural shift for the Village, its operations and the community as a whole. Along with the ESP, the Streetscape Plan and Active Transportation Plan were also adopted by the Village Council at the meeting. (One more plan, the Mobility Plan, has yet to be adopted.) Viewed in total, these plans put the Village on a more systematic, organized footing to ensure we achieve our goals as we consider future actions and policies. Their integration into Village operations along with the Comprehensive Plan, to be completed in the next month or so, provides a vision of a more friendly, welcoming, environmentally-aware and engaged community, where residents and businesses can live, grow and thrive for years to come.
Thank you Village Council, staff, and everyone who has given their time and effort to reach this point! Greener Grove looks forward to continuing to help DG create a greener, more environmentally-friendly future for all.
Quotes from the Council Regarding the ESP
“I spent the weekend going through this plan cover to cover, and just, wow. In the end, I absolutely love the inclusion of student artwork throughout this document. It’s really great, sets the right tone, sends the right message, and it’s all the way through so you can’t forget about it. It’s always there as a reminder of why we do what we do. Fantastic document. I’m just proud to have been part of it.”
– Mike Davenport, Commissioner
“I’m honestly thrilled with this document and happy to pass it as is. I cannot thank staff and Greener Grove and the ECC enough for the amount of work that has gone into this. I really think that we are lucky to have such an engaged group of residents and community that it was very clear every time we would get a draft for this that there were a lot of people who were very engaged and involved in this from start to finish. As someone who has been hoping for this and pushing for this since I was elected in 2019, to one, see this come to fruition, and two, be this detailed, nuanced and high quality, is very exciting.”
–Leslie Sadowski-Fugitt, Commissioner
“Fantastic work. What I like about this plan is that it provides a community-wide call to action, not just a government checklist. I appreciate the community pledge that invites residents and businesses and organizations to take part in this effort. I think it sets realistic and achievable and measurable goals. As someone who values accountability, I’m glad to see detailed objectives for the village and metrics to track our progress. I think it supports smart growth and reinforces fiscal responsibility with some of the long term cost savings that we will see with things like retro-fitting, smart water use, green infrastructure – all of those things will save tax-payer money. It highlights us as a regional leader, and reflects on us as a long-range, thoughtful village. [The Environmental Sustainability Plan is] data informed, community developed, expertly guided, and demonstrates the value of having a resource on staff. Overall, outstanding work and I look forward to supporting this.”
–Chris Gilmartin, Commissioner
“The village has always had a mindfulness for environmental sustainability, energy efficiency, and looking at things differently, but it was kind of like working out in a home basement. We kind of knew what we were doing and might have had some second-hand equipment we bought online and we were kind of doing the best we could. But then, we actually got a trainer (Jason Michnick, Environmental Sustainability Coordinator) who told us there’s a path forward for how to actually do this. We partnered with people who actually have programs that allowed us to better celebrate our accomplishments, strive for something better, to have metrics and measurements to actually show that we are achieving results we can be proud of. And partnering with the grassroots organizations, Greener Grove, and Pierce Downers Heritage Alliance – thank you for all your years of contribution, and people from the community who are coming together to support this, took us from working out in our basement to becoming professional athletes at the olympic level [in sustainability].”
–Martin Tully, Commissioner
“Kudos to staff, consultants, and everybody who’s gotten plugged in on putting this together. The amount of community feedback we’ve gotten through the ECC, Greener Grove and other organizations has been tremendous. I love that this plan is significantly broader and deeper than what I had in my head at the beginning of this process. We’re not just looking at one thing like being carbon neutral. We have something for every little bit of what goes into the definition of environmental sustainability and I think that’s fantastic. And the way we’re trying to engage the community and push folks along on their journey while we’re embarked on ours is inspiring as well.”
–Greg Hosé, Commissioner
“I think this plan appropriately helps set and build and underscore and give room for the building of a culture, as opposed to a box check thing. There’s an awful lot of environmental sustainability plans that are adopted by people and companies all across the country that are largely box checks, and they’re kind of B.S. And this is not that. This is a cultural refocus. This sets goals that are stretches, but not impossible. I also like the fact that in its very structure, it recognizes this plan will be an evolving thing. I think that’s important too, because the worst thing we could do is take this plan, put it on the shelf, check a few boxes, and in 10 years not be doing anything with it. This sets up for the cultural [refocus] but also the idea that this document itself will evolve over time so it’s not just sitting on a shelf, and we should all be really proud of that.”
–Bob Barnett, Mayor