Downers Grove swept both awards at the DuPage Mayors and Managers Conference innovation event on Sept. 16. The village won for its Greener Way Guide, a web app offering residents 219 sustainability actions and links to more than 500 resources.

The village took home Best Overall Program for the Greener Way initiative and Best Presentation for a three-minute video starring sustainability coordinator Jason Michnick, according to a village announcement. More than 100 municipal professionals from across DuPage County attended the celebration, where competing towns each had four minutes to pitch an innovative program before attendees voted on winners.

No other town won an award.

Michnick's video featured humorous vignettes with a distinctive, Wes Anderson-inspired visual style. Village content producer Chris Derylo conceived, voiced and edited the piece.

The Greener Way Guide, launched in June, organizes actions across five themes and 26 topics. Residents can create a free account, pick actions that fit their household and track progress over time. The site also includes a survey to help users figure out where to start.

The app grew out of the village's broader Guiding DG Sustainability plan, which Downers Grove adopted in April 2025 as its first Environmental Sustainability Plan. Guiding DG combines four major planning efforts into one framework meant to guide 20 years of growth in the village of more than 50,000 residents. Those efforts include the Comprehensive Plan, Active Transportation Plan, Environmental Sustainability Plan and the Downtown and Fairview Avenue Streetscapes Plan.

That same framework earned the 2025 Daniel Burnham Award for a Comprehensive Plan from the Illinois Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA-IL). When the Burnham Award was presented in October 2025, Mayor Bob Barnett called the Guiding DG project one that "reflects our community's vision for the future and the hard work of our Village Council, staff, and residents."

Downers Grove joined the Greenest Region Compact, a Chicago-area sustainability coordination effort, in 2023. The Greener Way Guide is the village's tool for turning that planning work into individual action, and it does not require an account to browse.