Powerful Green Map

The Powerful Green Map is the fifth citywide edition of the Green Apple Map of NYC's environment since 1992, and the first to focus on a single theme - energy. It provides an overview, exploring issues such as: Why We Need to Act Now, Every Day and Easy Green Choices, and Powerful Investments for Today and Tomorrow. To cite a few examples of habit-changing ideas: "Use the Powerful Green Map to lower your utility bills, find a new cycling route, see cutting edge green buildings, plan a riverside solar tour with the kids, to track down fresh local vegetables for dinner and much more." With its 3 views of NYC's energy environment, the map charts hundreds of sites around NYC and links users to 200 online resources. Printed with soy-based inks on 100% post-consumer recycled and 100% processed chlorine-free paper, it is available in both folded (pocket-sized) and poster formats. Printed copies are available around New York City or are available in single or multiple copies (please see contact details, below).

In addition, the project's website features a free digital (PDF) edition of the Powerful Green Map, plus resources in English, Spanish and Chinese. This website is interactive, inviting visitors to contribute their own ideas of new websites and energy conservation tips. "When we started creating this map, we hoped it would spark lots of discussion and activity in neighborhoods, workplaces and schools all around NYC", say organisers. This web portal is a way to continue that interactive, participatory process.

Along these lines, in developing the resource organisers hoped to provide a vision that would help motivate the average New Yorker to get involved. During the research process, they uncovered "an astonishing array of positive sites and resources to showcase, as well as a whole host of downsides". Indeed, the tone is positive, with the stated goal of the project being "to engage you in taking more steps towards energy conservation every day - by knowing more, using less, employing decentralized generation technologies and reducing the impacts on our health, our climate and our economy. Together, we can do it..." They explain, "We didn't want to be too negative, yet we did not want to gloss over the problems associated with our 'fuelish choices'." The strategy they opted for was to begin the map with "Energy Dark Sides" in order to give users the impetus to act, first on the Every Day & Easy map's practical, low-cost options, then moving deeper into the Powerful Investments Map, which charts renewables, green buildings, and more. Each portion of the 3-part map guides the viewer into taking the next steps, using "inviting images" and presenting definitions, ideas, and resources in "a compelling manner" to try to spur environmentally responsible action.

Environment, Energy Conservation.

The Powerful Green Map is an initiative carried out as part of the global Green Map System (GMS)/network, which has spread to 46 countries in the decade since the concept originated in NYC. As seen at the global Green Map website, each locally-created Green Map charts a unique landscape of sustainability and cultural resources, all using Green Map's globally designed Icons. As of this writing, the Powerful Green Map is the 225th Green Map published worldwide.