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The Minnesota GreenStep School Award is given to schools and districts that have met program criteria and have made a commitment to green school progress and sharing their GreenStep stories. As they progress through the program, they earn new recognition levels that get added to their original award.
Stepping into the Future: Designing the Minnesota GreenStep Schools Award
By Jonee Kulman Brigham, MN GreenStep Schools Program Leader
With Simon Nussbaum, Green Dot Sign
June 20, 2025
The design of the MN GreenStep Schools award is a reflection of its vision, values, and affiliations. This is expressed both in its form and materials.
The Roseville Area School Board and Green Team with their GreenStep 1 Award for the district and the Roseville Area High School.
Designing an Award: The Form
Designing an Award: The Form
Stepping Up to Greener Futures:
Stepping Up to Greener Futures:
The first thing one notices about the MN GreenStep Schools award is probably its shape: stepping up from left to right. This follows the shape of the GreenStep Schools logo which matches the logo of the MN GreenStep Cities and Tribal Nations program since all of them are part of the GreenStep Communities suite of programs. The step shape speaks to the beginner-friendly nature of the program that supports communities in advancing their green progress “step by step” with recognition, support, and resources along the way.
The color scheme is also inherited from the other GreenStep programs playing on the color as a symbol of a comprehensive view of green progress that includes environmental responsibility, economic efficiency, human health and well-being, and education and progress over time.
The MN GreenStep Schools Award Design goes to Step 10, which imagines a school that works within the cycles of nature, collecting as much clean energy and water as it consumes, with classrooms that actually enhance health, and sustainability education integrated throughout the curriculum as a compelling place-based way to learn.
What is beyond Step 10? A school that restores the environment, and its community. A net clean energy producer. This is the vision of the future, and the clear blocks in the image above are a placeholder in the design for that future to come...
An Award with Room to Grow
An Award with Room to Grow
Another feature of the MN GreenStep Schools award is the progress bar on the right of the award and the addition of wooden blocks to recognize advancement in the program over time. GreenStep programs are not one-time awards, but meant to support and recognize continuous improvement over the course of years as organizations build on their successes, share their stories, and work toward their dreams.
The primary recognition levels or “steps” for the GreenStep School Program are designed to be parallel in approach to the 5 steps in the Minnesota GreenStep Cities and Tribal Nations recognition levels while also encouraging the breadth reflected in the Green Ribbon Schools Program and imagining visionary level performance in the future (Greensteps 6-10). The advancement from one step to the next is optional and can be done at your own pace.
Steps 1-3 focus on setting initial intentions via a resolution, and implementing best practice actions. Steps 4-5 move into a focus on monitoring and managing overall performance outcomes by setting up practices to keep track of performance metrics like overall water use and then taking actions to improve the overall performance. Note that throughout all steps, teams should continue to implement and document best practice actions. Steps 6-10 focus on planning towards the ideal vision, including making a plan for how to get there, taking steps along the way, and getting recognized for meeting performance milestones. For example, a long term plan for the vision of net-zero energy, might look at conservation behaviors, new equipment, better management practices, and solar cells on the roof.
Designing an Award: The Materials
Designing an Award: The Materials
In the same way that a school’s construction can reflect its vision and values, we wanted the MN GreenStep Schools award to be made with materials that reflect its attention to environment, health, and education.
In looking for a fabricator for the MN GreenStep Schools award, we were interested in a company that was both local to Minnesota and had environmentally preferable methods and materials. We were happy to find Green Dot Sign fit the bill and we worked with its founder, Simon Nussbaum to develop the sign details and materials. I asked Simon to tell us more about himself, his company and the materials of the award in a short interview.
Note that MN GreenStep Schools does not explicitly endorse any specific product or manufacturer or their claims.
Jonee: Thank you for talking with me Simon. Can you start out by introducing yourself and your company?
Simon: I'm Simon Nussbaum, founder of Green Dot Sign. We started with a simple goal of developing and implementing ways to reduce the amount of plastic used in the sign industry. Our focus is using wood as the primary component for high-grade interior ADA, code, and wayfinding sign systems. We also produce all-metal, 100% recyclable exterior ADA signs. From this center we've grown into many other niches but never lost our focus of minimizing plastic.
Jonee: It was an interesting process to work with you to develop the GreenStep award idea into its current form. One of the important features of the award are the materials themselves. Can you tell us about the materials and how they model environmental responsibility?
Simon: That's a great question and it gets to the core of things! So first, imagine if your award were made from typical materials ~ thick acrylic, maybe with a faux wood vinyl wrap. To make the step shape, you'd cut it from sheet stock material. The award would weigh about 12 pounds, and being very conservative, another 12 pounds of scrap is needed for processing. So 24 pounds of acrylic. The vinyl wood print won't weigh much, but you may have noticed that PVC pipe doesn't bend, but PVC sign film, and other everyday vinyl products, can bend. Phthalates, the same stuff we just got out of our food storage materials because they mimic hormones and mess with our bodies, are what let them bend.
So that faux wood plastic award uses at least 24 pounds of acrylic, which directly equates to over 12 pounds of fossil fuel, and touching it brings your skin in contact with chemicals we've deemed unsafe to store food. But somehow we're still using them every day for "industrial" purposes because culturally we don't see that "industrial" means the vinyl floor our toddlers walk barefoot on, our cars, shower curtains, and so much more. I've been in manufacturing of one type or another my whole life, and it's easy if you aren't part of it to see it as "distant—"keeping-the-dirty-stuff-over-there"—but the fact is practically everything you see in your day-to-day was designed by someone, from the tree outside your window being selected and located carefully to your door handle, floor, container of milk, coffee cup, car, phone, chair, etc., all of it comes from an industrial system.
So—choosing to make the industrial system cleaner is the whole idea.
And we found the easiest way to achieve that and to communicate it to a wider audience was using two existing systems.
The first is FSC certification. Your award comes from FSC-certified wood. This means the forest it was grown in is managed to the highest international standard and essentially has to overall grow in biomass over time, with native plants. The rate of cut has to be less than the rate of growth, so eventually it's an old-growth forest. The certification starts with the land, and then all of us processors can't intermix other woods and we track and separate inventory to ensure your product is what you want it to be. Your particular wood is aspen from Wisconsin, known for its clear color and stronger fibers, and aspen grows rhizomatically so new shoots start fast.
Our next step was a Declare - Red List approved label, which dives into all parts of the finished product down to 1000 / PPM to be sure none of the over 10,000 chemicals most harmful to life are present. Though not all of our product is Red List Approved due to client demands for certain finishes, etc., our processes are commonized as much as possible so we know the glue, inks, and coatings are as good as they can be.
Jonee: The material story is impressive–and the materials are so attractive together as well. When we show the award people are excited about it.
Simon: Yeah, wood is inherently beautiful. I think most everyone would rather touch a piece of nature than a piece of plastic! If you can communicate that you value our shared environment with a material choice, rather than words, you're way ahead. If you're using a FSC certified paper or wood you help convince me that you value the environment.
Aspen trees
Jonee: Location matters for environmentally responsible products since energy is used in transporting materials. That's one reason it's nice for Minnesota GreenStep Schools that you are a Minnesota company. Can you say more about why you located your company here?
Simon: Another great question! A first thing to remember is that sign plastics are about 50% fossil fuel by weight, the scrap rate is over 50%, and none of them are biodegradable or easily recycled. So energy spent to transport is less than energy spent to produce—and we can not start to quantify energy needed to dispose of it. That experiment has started, in the form of nearly every shovelful of dirt and its content of microplastic. Consumers see the last step of something being delivered, but shipping bulk materials, especially over distance, is a bigger fossil fuel energy burner.
Most of our signs use hardwoods like white oak, walnut, birch, and maple. The vast majority of it is harvested in Wisconsin or Minnesota, with some species being more likely to be from Iowa or Nebraska. The tree is almost always initially processed pretty near where it's cut down, with finer processing being centralized. We tend to purchase 2 to 4 steps downstream from the tree farmer. I have tremendous faith that the last step of delivery from us to the client will be nearly all electrified within 10 years, and human ingenuity will get that to be very clean.
Simon Nussbaum of Green Dot Sign holds the first MN GreenStep Schools Award Block.
Jonee: What do you love most about your job and what advice would you have for students interested in a career like yours?
Simon: I love the finished product going out and being used. Becoming a part of our shared world. For students—firstly—work hard. Specifically, find the things you will work hardest at and stick with them. That way you can be part of whatever Manhattan Project-level thing the future holds for you, and you'd be able to work through the difficult parts. Secondly, be good. Be the good you want the world to have. Your impact matters.
Jonee: Thank you Simon, for your time and for helping to bring the GreenStep Schools award to life!
Simon: Thank you, Jonee, for the chance to share our little story, and I hope it's interesting for your readers.
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