Our Vision - a better healthier greener smarter world!
Our world is a beautiful place. Join us from where you stand and help everyone see it that way.
Our world is a beautiful place. Join us from where you stand and help everyone see it that way.
Green Map was launched on March 25, 1995. With the involvement of the O2 ecological design network, we developed the global system upon the foundation inspired by the first Green Map, which was published in New York in 1992. The brainchild of Wendy Brawer, the Green Map project was collaborative, right from the start.
Local and global networks began to blossom to support and connect the people making the maps of their home communities around the world. As we learned from their amazing publications, methods and innovations, the Green Map toolkit grew as it helped more cities build local leadership capacity, knowledge and networks.
Our team in New York expanded to meet the challenge too, supported by talented staff, scores of interns and volunteers; a robust board and advisors, and most importantly, the direct experience and dedication of Green Map Makers. Each inspired more Green Map projects, and many formed regional hubs to further their expertise and impacts.
The way we all use maps changed dramatically in this period - so did the technology. We did our best to evolve with it, and at the same time, embrace all the ‘expressions of home’ made in any medium by Green Map Makers around the world. We also make local Green Maps of our city, to test new ideas, and produce Green Map events and consulting projects.
Now, with the accumulated knowledge and experience of hundreds of people, Green Map System is opening access to its renown icons and tools so more communities can use them to bring sustainability to light. We’re also encouraging Map Makers to extend beyond the map into making experiences, apps, and other kinds of projects that spark action and change.
Our organization’s future is dedicated to our common future and the planet and people we all love.
In addition to Green Maps, local leaders are creating projects. Join our newsletter list or explore here to be inspired by their stories and vibrant contributions to resilient and healthier communities.
Teachers and students at all levels have created Green Maps, tagged Youth. See our Education & Youth page for more, including videos and academic papers that draw connections and extend models.
Printed – interactive – digital – experiential - created for kiosks, classrooms and community spaces. We've got hundreds of editions and we are sharing the tools to make more.
Need help engaging community members in sustainability and planning projects? You can involve our skilled team as consultants as your develop your program's strategy.
Volunteers, interns and donors enable us to accomplish so much more. Thank you for helping communities in 65 countries map what matters in our changing world.
Green Map has long embraced key elements of the “gift economy,” an ancient practice where valuables are given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. Although we instituted a sliding service fee in 2007 that was crucial to our build-out of our mapping platform and other tools, in 2017, we are reinvigorating our previous policy of sharing.
Going open is a step forward - as we put more mapmaking tools in more hands, we can give more communities the opportunity to share their sustainability successes, widen our educational and policy impact, and allow for the creation of more compelling, effective expressions of hope in these often difficult, discouraging times. In the face of our warming world, we decline to step back. Sharing is a powerful and positive way to move forward.
Green Map System looks forward to partnering with you in all the ways that “open” suggests, even beyond open source -- open to possibility, open to healing, and open to the prospect of greener, more resilient communities. We welcome the opportunity to share this new, open exchange with each and every one of you.
Interested in volunteering at Green Map in NYC, or pitching in from afar? Please send your CV to info @ greenmap.org, and include a cover note. Contributions are greatly appreciated, too!