The Village of Wilmette is committed to promoting and creating a more sustainable environment through energy efficiency, improved land and stormwater management, water conservation, pollution reduction, and recycling.
For information on Wilmette’s Green Initiatives and tips on how you can lead a more sustainable life, please click on the links to the left.
Village Board Endorses Sustainability Effort
On Tuesday, August 28, 2018, the Wilmette Village Board passed a resolution endorsing the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus’ Greenest Region Compact (GRC). To date, more than 70 communities have signed the GRC, which addresses ten areas, including climate, economic development, energy, land, leadership, mobility, municipal operations, sustainable communities, water, and waste & recycling.
By adopting the GRC, Wilmette joins forces with municipal leaders in creating a more sustainable region. Please click here for more information about Wilmette’s involvement in the GRC.
Village President Joins Climate Mayors
On August 28, 2018, Village President Bob Bielinski signed Resolution 2018-R-15, authorizing President Bielinski to join Climate Mayors. Climate Mayors was founded in 2014 and is a bipartisan, peer-to-peer network of mayors of cities located throughout the United States that work together to demonstrate leadership on climate change. For more information on Climate Mayors please visit climatemayors.org.
Edens Pollinator Corridor
Edens Pollinator Prairie at Lake & Laramie
The Edens Pollinator Corridor is a multi-year effort to convert approximately 5.75-acres of underutilized land adjacent to the Edens Expressway into dedicated pollinator habitat. Pollinators are critical to the life cycle of many native plants and integral to food webs. This project will ensure that pollinators are provided essential resources to continue these services.
Restoration of these ecologically barren sites will increase biodiversity through the installation of native grasses and forbs that are necessary to support pollinators. These deep-rooted natives will filter stormwater runoff and improve water quality while recharging the groundwater and building healthy soil. Furthermore, the Edens Pollinator Corridor as a whole supports climate resiliency through improved land management and will serve as a model for the restoration of other similarly barren sites along other highways.
Lake Avenue & Laramie Avenue Prairie
Recognizing our responsibility to maximize the benefits of all public open space, Wilmette broke ground on the Edens Pollinator Corridor in 2019 with the installation of a 0.80-acre pollinator meadow at the western entrance to the Village, adjacent to the Lake Avenue exit on the Edens Expressway. Visitors to the site will see native plants such as Yellow Coneflower (Ratibida pinnata), Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), Sand Coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata), and Hoary Vervain (Verbena stricta) in the summer, and an abundance of Asters in the fall.
Glenview Road & Hibbard Road Bioretention Garden
In 2021, the Edens Pollinator Corridor was expanded south when a vacant land parcel prone to flooding at the corner of Glenview and Hibbard Roads was converted to an underground bioretention cell and planted with Swamp Milkweed and other deep-rooted prairie plants.
Glenview Road & Long Road Prairies
For the next phase of the Edens Pollinator Corridor, the Village has contracted Indigo Ecological Design to design the restoration of two underutilized land parcels located at the western entrance to the Village along the Glenview Road corridor. The Village was awarded a $5,000 grant from Openlands for the construction of these sites.
This page was last updated 08/18/23.