Stories

NYC has an outsized Climate Week from Sept 20-27. Among other interactions, we offer walks that bring participants to the places making inroads on the Lower East Side. This year, we'll also be sharing our new energy themed LES Power Green Map! On Friday afternoon, Sept 25th, we are taking part in Green Thumbs' Community Gardens afternoon event in the East Village, with details to come. Saturday, Sept 26th, we're kicking off our Climate & Culture Green Map Tour at ABC No Rio, where the construction of the new Passive House arts & activism building is nearly complete. Join director Gavin Marcus for a sneak preview, and take a walk with Wendy Brawer, director of Green Map - along the way we'll encounter the Tragic Optimist, Andrew Boyd, too. RSVP and join us. Details to come on Sunday's tour, too, as well as other events we are participating in this Climate Week. 

We're excited to put the latest NYC print map on press and it's a first - it's a map-zine! That's right - you can read it page by page, cover to cover, like a zine. Or you can fold it open and explore the energy resources located the Lower East Side.  Get the PDF at bit.ly/LESpower with active links to dozens of great resources! It will be released in the coming days, as NYC Climate Week approaches - we'll list events here, and places where you can pick up print copies. It's designed for people seeking job and career options as well as those who want to take part of the energy transition but aren't sure where to start.  Our thanks to everyone who made suggestions and to Citizens NYC who provided the funding for this project. 

These days of war and calamity help us recall other disasters and how Green Mapmakers worked to address them. Our non-profit has been around for disasters of many kinds over the last 30 years and our work can be an antidote as getting involved locally is one sure way to lift your community out of the fog and paralysis and into action.

Enjoy this exciting report from the Wilderness Foundation Taiwan by Green Map Volunteer Instructor: 如風 Li Ju Chen, January 15, 2026

It's been a difficult year for renewable energy and climate health advocates.  Importantly, despite all the backsliding and lobbying that leads to more fossil foolishness alongside AI's enormous energy appetite, there is so much progress being made in NYC. At Green Map, we want everyone to know how they can be part of the solution, too!

This is such a good idea! Icons and story by Don’t Drop it, Taiwan (Chinese below)We Are the Don’t Drop it_Team Taiwan – Small Actions, Big ImpactWe are the Don’t Drop it_Team Taiwan, a group of children in Taiwan who have been working on cigarette butt issues and environmental protection since elementary school.

It's been wonderful having events this year! In addition to live events, our monthly Open Hour continues on first Wednesdays at 11 (except in August), as noted on our Events page. Starting with the Earth Day Week crew in Saugerties, above, workshops have helped bring forth great ideas about local resources, places and people who are making positive change in their community.  Several interested people joined our 2025 Jane's Walk in May, which offered a planner's view of the Avenue C Cultural Corridor with anthropologist Lyn Pentecost and designer Wendy Brawer, who is also Green Map's Director. Special thanks to all the locations we visited, including Campos Garden, our starting point! 

April features Earth Day, of course, and hopeful signs of spring. At these stressful times, work grounded in one’s own community can be a balm for your outlook - mapping is a power tool for uncertain times. Giving voice that shapes our common future, it’s now the season for digging in, spurring growth for all.  

Last year, we started to envision a digital archive that would be made in collaboration with the Green Mapmakers that would chart the outcomes, maps and media of each Green Map project. We’ve since come to understand the complexity of that grand vision and decided to start by focusing on the most important element: the impacts, as shared by the Mapmakers.  

Share knowledge and contribute data through a Green Map survey. Answer questions, take pictures, and observe your community and local environment while on the move.

Hello to Green Map friends!As 2024 reaches the Winter Solstice, we’re all seeking the light. We know it will be brighter ahead. We also know our work with community mapping is more important than ever, as it helps to ground people to home places and together, reach our full potential in this age of change. Thank you for all you do for our world, and for your support. 

We know that to lead a successful Green Map project, it’s crucial to engage effectively with your audience and community. At the same time, publishing websites and managing digital content can be challenging and costly for small, community-based map projects. That’s why we have launched a set of features that allow you to create a custom Green Map website without needing to code. Using these tools, you can build your website from scratch, on a tight budget, and share your project with your community simply and effectively.

*Poetry doesn’t have to exist far away; it can be woven into our everyday lives.*  Article and photos by Mika Shen, volunteer at SOW: The Society of WildernessDo you know of any spots, eateries, facilities, or intriguing stories around the SOW Taipei branch on Zhaoguang Street in Zhongzheng District? Volunteers attending classes at our Taipei branch often ask about nearby attractions or restaurants. Inspired by this curiosity, we decided to create a Green Map specifically for the SOW Taipei branch as part of the “10th Green Map Instructor Training” project. (see it below in the original format and here, on the Green Map Platform. )

Our versatile mapping platform is designed for collaboration and ease of use. Quickly, you will have a great Green Map made for and with your community!

Climate Week 2024 was a great learning experience. The learning started with the Harbor School Marine Affair’s two-week Green Map project - mapping Governors Island’s climate vulnerabilities, its eco-system services and the SDGs.

The SCAPE Water Quality App project is led by Professor Dan Collins and was developed with the help educators, scientists, designers, and programmers at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, the Luminosity Lab at ASU, the Telluride Institute in Telluride, Colorado, the GIS Collective in Berlin, Germany, and the Green Map System in New York.

During the year, New Yorkers are producing vegetables, herbs and fruit all over the city - yes, there could eggs, honey and more!Much of this local produce is grown in community gardens, verdant spots of life that provide abundant social and eco benefits alongside delicious tomatoes, colorful rainbow chard and spicy peppers.

Advisor, Partner, Mapmaker

We received two articles from the wonderful team at Society of Wilderness! Mika Shen shares her experience and a team leader, Boylin provides background (and some of the cool products created in Taiwan to support this effort)! We encourage you to download the each of the PDFs and view how images and languages were arranged together in the articles. 

Dundee is a city known for scientific discoveries and design, but thanks to the dedicated team at the Maxwell Centre and the Green Map Platform team, Dundee is also a city where you can discover brilliant opportunities to grow food and improve local biodiversity with ease at growdundee.blog.

Dundee has a rich history of food-growing and gardening projects, including allotments and botanical gardens. Today, many small groups, charities, and community-based initiatives manage food-growing and gardening projects across the city, but information about these groups can be difficult to find.

It’s been inspiring to learn more about the Local Place Plan programme in Scotland.  I started hearing about it back in 2021, when I met with Enid Trevett of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust during COP26. Now the law of the land, Local Place Plans are community led and produced. As described in their slideshow, once the Local Place Plan is completed and registered with the local planning authority, these plans have to be taken into account by the local government when reviewing and updating their local development plan. It also has to be taken into consideration when any developer submits a planning application.

As Spring settles in, good news! Our new set of Local Food Icons is ready to use. Just in time for the growing season (in the northern hemisphere), there are 60 icons for Growing, Eating, Enterprise and Specialty local food.

Add to this map - bit.ly/avecadd24  Share this map - bit.ly/avecmap24