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Executive Summary In its 2020 Strategic Plan, the GreenStep Cities steering committee outlined several visions and goals for the future of the program, as recommended by GreenStep participant feedback. One high priority identified by the GreenStep partners and participants identified climate response. The GreenStep Cities program has one Best Practice specifically addressing Climate (Best Practice 29, Climate Adaptation and Community Resilience), along with many other program actions that address greenhouse gas reductions, adaptation, and community education across the 29 best practices. However, there is a need to highlight and elevate specific actions to clearly define pathways for local governments to take climate action through the GreenStep program. These pathways should be relevant to climate change specifically in Minnesota rather than climate change as a broad topic. The Gold Leaf program identifies the pathways that are most applicable to Minnesota and its goals by cross-referencing actions with the State's Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory and Climate Action Framework. GreenStep has expanded several times since its conception, adding to its program, for example, new Best Practices, additional steps, and even incorporating a pilot program for Tribal Nations to participate. Based on the interest of program participants and the visions shared by the state, we believe adding a climate action component to the existing GreenStep Cities program is the most appropriate step forward. A climate action program through GreenStep will also help address the concerning climate trends in Minnesota. Temperatures are warming, especially during winter. Summers are becoming drier while precipitation events become more severe. Our natural environment is increasingly unreliable for migratory animals, birds, pollinators, and, indeed, us. Local governments are already seeing these impacts in their communities. Cities, tribal nations, and other governmental units are at the vanguard for climate action. However, there is still an unfilled niche or support for a climate action program specifically for local governments. An advisory committee and other stakeholders worked to develop such a program. The program has taken the shape of a nature-themed "badge", in which participants of the program would receive a "leaf" token of achievement for completing any of the selected 43 climate actions under the categories of Figure 1: SMART actions are specific, mitigation, planning, adaptation, and community. Once a participant receives measurable, attainable, relevant, a gold leaf, it can be displayed on a tree model or online image to showcase a and time -bound. community's climate efforts. The climate action program differs from original GreenStep "Steps" in that these high -priority, high -impact actions are designed to be SMART (Figure 1). This document describes the process of crafting a framework for this program and outlines the recommendations to begin a pilot program. Gold Leaf Program Proposal I www.MNGreenStep.org Page 53 of 185