Country: United States

Organization: Green Map System

Year the initiative began: 1995

Project Website: GreenMap.org

Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions:

• Main barrier addressed: Cross-cultural myopia
• Main insight addressed: Incorporate sustainable practices

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What is the goal of your innovation?
We engage communities worldwide in charting a sustainable future, helping residents and visitors discover their world from a green perspective!

How does your approach support or embody geotourism?
Green Map System (GMS) engages communities worldwide in charting a sustainable future. Utilizing our award-winning iconography and adaptable multi-lingual resources, locally-led Mapmaking teams investigate, chart, and promote living green, nature, social and cultural sites. The resulting maps guide users to experience, enhance and preserve local culture while minimizing environmental impacts. For tourists, Green Maps highlight attractive sites that offer authenticity and social benefit. A PR service for the hometown environment, GMS promotes involvement and exploration of local landscapes while fostering importance of resource conservation and respect for the community's cultural and ecological sites, routes and initiatives. Today, there are over 450 communities in 50 countries with socially responsible, resource efficient Green Map projects. Over 335 unique editions have been published that guide diverse users to more sustainable everyday choices, encourage involvement in important new activities and provide visitors with best practice models to share back home. GMS is now developing an online Green Mapmaking tool that will reach a much broader audience, encourage global exchange, permit more immediate tracking of change and 'across the maps' viewing. The new OpenGreenMap mapmaking website will also become a great way for visitors to express what they have experienced.

Describe your approach in detial. How is it innovative?
Since inception in 1995, the collaboratively developed GMS has thrived by carefully considering needs of local leaders and communities, grasping changing technologies and evolving understandings of community sustainability. In order to achieve its mission of inclusive participation, GMS’s approach has always been flexible, people-centered and toward the open and low-cost. This is exemplified by GMS’s shared iconography, the world's only known universal symbol set for maps. These Icons allow Green Mapmakers to rely on local resources, skills and sensibilities rather than a one-size-fits-all program to make an evocative community portrait. Tourists can rely on 'locally-flavored' Green Maps and collaboratively produced books, presentations, workshops and tours for carefully researched and informed guidance on 170 types of sites including Farmers Markets, Traditional Neighborhoods, Community Gardens and more. Now OpenGreenMap, our newest networking innovation, will help people everywhere share their own collection of sustainability resources, quickly putting more local investigations and narratives online as we build a vast base of best practices that can inform and inspire tourists. OpenGreenMap will involve thousands in helping share, update, rate and translate site information, empowering eco-leadership on an unprecedented scale.

What types of partnerships or professional developement would be most beneficial in spearding your innovation?
OpenGreenMap extends GMS’s mission of inclusive participation by featuring open commentary, 'impacts index' and images from visitors and resident. Everyone - students, travelers, site operators, journalists and the wider public - can get involved! Developing initial and subsequent project phases requires many skills, supporters and content partners. Strengthening our support "Hubs" (in Indonesia, Latin America, etc.) and empowering decentralized program leadership throughout the Green Map network is crucial! Participating in Changemaker's interactive contest helps us understand the goals of other applying organizations, encourage their participation in our own project, and gain important exposure to press, tourists, and others!

In one sentence describe what kind of impact, change, or reform your approach is intended to achieve.
Green Maps highlight under-appreciated resources, promote local ecotourism development and encourage visitor engagement, exchange and replication of successful initiatives.

Describe the degree of success of your approach to date. Clearly define how you measure quantitative and qualitative impact in terms of how your approach contributes to the sustainability or enhancement of local culture, environment, heritage, or aesthetics? How does your approach minimize negative impacts?
GMS has a global degree of success with locally focused accomplishments, including 455 mapmaking projects in 50 countries, 355 published maps, and approximately 1100 website users per day! Among the Green Mapmakers' network, each unique project outcome attracts visitors to important community features, many of which are unknown to tourists and residents. Project leaders take Green Mapmaking beyond print and into practice, promoting tourism that preserves local heritage while steering future development policy towards greater sustainability. The process is valuable, too. See http://greenatlas.org/download.html for this rural example: Robeson County North Carolina brought ethnically diverse groups of students, adults and elders together to investigate natural, spiritual, civic and recreational treasures while strengthening community collaboration and celebrating multiculturalism. For local adventures that link rich urban ecology and cultural diversity, view Toronto, Kyoto and Pune stories there too. The Tororo Eco-tourist Green Map project (entered in this competition!) exemplifies how mapmaking can support much-needed new tourism-related income generation where there are few green business opportunities. Rather than ignoring challenges to sustainability, our iconography acknowledges communal challenges, sparking redress and activism. While conventional eco-tourism creates larger ecological footprint, Green Map-inspired local tourism generates a more thoughtful approach to new places and perspectives.

How does your program promote traveler enthusiasm, satisfaction, and engagement with the locale?
Environmental impacts and climate change are an increasingly important consideration for travelers. GMS's resources help everyone achieve a balance between environmental vitality, economic integrity and social equity, encouraging travelers to discover and interact with a community’s unique non-commercial eco-cultural aspects like Healthy Dining, Bird & Wildlife Watching, Nature Walks, Archeological Sites, and more. Green Maps encourage residents to visit the 'other' side of town, extending local/social engagement. GMS's Ecotourism Resource icon designates green hotels, tours and info-points. We offer fresh vantage points to all, and OpenGreenMap's interactive website will help travelers share views and images about their destination, too.

In what ways are local residents actively involved in your innovation, including participation and community input? How has the community responded to or benefited from your approach?
Thousands of community members of all ages and backgrounds have taken part in locally-mobilized Green Map projects, developing a vision that connects them to a worldwide effort. Communications, sustainability assessment, outreach and hospitality are among the skills gained. In many places, residents' involvement has led to multiple publications involving schools, citywide celebrations and successful beyond-the-map sustainability initiatives. Our forthcoming Impacts books will illuminate specific benefits. Reaching and motivating a broader audience, OpenGreenMap will facilitate more participation and community input, engaging broader support for mass transportation, green businesses and many other kinds of social/sustainable resources.

Describe how your innovation helps travelers and local residents better understand the value of the area's cultural and natural heritage, and educates them on local environmental issues. How do you motivate them to act responsibly in their future travel decisions?
Green Maps give all users a fresh perception of place, and motivate new experiences, modes of travel, practices and networks. Highlighting both urban and rural resources, they encourage hometown eco-tourism and offer visitors an authentic alternative to typical fare and makes patterns of change or social inequity transparent. With OpenGreenMap, the dialogue about various sites' attributes will become public. Visitor can contribute images, observations and translations, helping both the site and future visitor experiences be improved. Successful green initiatives in one community can take root in another as tourists implement and replicate some of the best practices in their hometown.

Is your initiative financially and organizationally sustainable? If not, what is required to make it so? What is the potential demand for your innovation?
Although our financial resources are modest, GMS is blessed with volunteered support that more than quadruples our bottom line. Indeed, many Green Mapmakers, interns and pro bono supporters have contributed hundreds of hours over the past 13 years, sustaining our trajectory and vision. GMS has become adept at utilizing open source and low cost resources and all Green Mapmakers manage their own programs in creative ways. Most Green Maps are distributed free and there are frequent free /low-cost events – from workshops to tours to presentations – that community members and visitors can take part in around the world.

How is your initiative currently financed? If available, provide information on your finances and organization that could help others. Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff.
GMS's staff includes 5-10 people. Our annual budget is US$150,000. (If we were to combine ours with the budgets of locally-led Green Map projects, we'd consistently top a million dollars!) GMS's income is derived from foundations and awards -70%, individual donors -15% and mapmaker registration & other sliding user fees -15%. Our goal is to reduce our reliance on grants over the next five years. Our mapmaking website may generate ad revenue from some for-profit users and we plan to develop a tour service and new 'win-win-win' Green Map products. Our work and adaptable resources leverage far more social benefit that we can ever account for, but we are developing an 'impacts index' for OpenGreenMap so we can start to quantify this value. We carefully credit each contributor of collaborative/translated mapmaking resources, which are provided often in lieu of fees by low-income Green Mapmakers.

What is your plan to expand your approach? Please indicate where/how you would like to grow or enhance your innovation, or have others do so.
As a locally-led global program, expansion is constant. 60-70 new Green Mapmakers join each year. In 2007, we moved registration, our tools and Mapmaker's exchange online (see Resources at GreenMap.org) to streamline administrative tasks. We're now in 50 countries, but would like to do more outreach in low-income communities where participation and sustainability are not yet well-established. We have nascent support Hubs in Indonesia, China, Colombia and other countries that can be remarkable effective at capacity building, but we lack support for this important decentralized leadership development. We are planning a Hub exchange and regional development in 2009.

What are the main barriers you encounter in managing, implementing, or replicating your innovation? What barriers keep your program from having greater impact?
OpenGreenMap will reduce many financial and technical barriers to participation around the world – indeed we are designing it so anyone from rural elders to developing world 'one laptop per child' youth to digerati can use it. We are planning in phases so issues like over-capacity and data storage don't limit our ability to involve the public in commenting, adding images, translations and personal impacts to OpenGreenMap, as well as their own maps. OpenGreenMap will support the communities that need assistance most first. We'd much prefer to spend our time implementing the phases of OpenGreenMap than seeking funds, of course. Marketing is another creative opportunity for us, and we are responding in new ways, such as entering newsworthy contests, like the Geotourism Challenge, to reach and motivate new audiences. We have amazingly talented and dedicated people on our staff, but we do need to address the issue of underpayment so they can be on our team for the long term. Many nonprofits face this same dilemma; in our case, many stay in our network even after they leave, establishing a Green Map project of their own, or otherwise staying involved.

What is the origin of your innovation? Tell your story.
In December 1991, our founding director, Wendy Brawer, mused about the thousands of delegates and NGOs coming to the United Nations for several weeks in spring for pre-Earth Summit negotiations. When out and about in New York City, would they be able to perceive the signs of progress toward sustainability she was noticing, such as farmers markets and green shops, community gardens, cleaner beaches and greenways, ecology and conservation centers, and more? Wendy decided to make a universally understandable resource-efficient map of NYC's green spots to provide an enjoyable green tour for visitors and as a guide to engage residents in sustainable living and 'hometown ecotourism'. A few weeks later, published copies of the Green Apple Map were promoting the city's natural and built environment. It was well received, and quickly sparked the concept of the Green Map System, a locally managed, globally linked social media movement. Creating Green Map System's resources, policies and structure was exciting as the o2 Global Network of eco-designers was involved from the start. This meant the universal Green Map Icons were collaboratively designed and vetted by sustainability practitioners from a dozen countries. Created to be a living lexicon that evolved with our understanding of sustainability in the community context, Green Map Icons function as an inventory tool for the mapmakers and lively connecting points for map users of all backgrounds. Still at the heart of the Green Map movement, version 3 of the Icons debuted in early 2008, and included many new symbols of interest to tourists, as seen at GreenMap.org/icons. Green Mapmaking thrived. By year 2000, we had published 36 unique Green Maps, and had about 100 projects underway around the world. We received our non-profit status and began capacity building for the long-term. Our first disk of Youth Green Mapmaking Resources was created and more multilingual resources were being shared. Our work was recognized by President Clinton (US National Sustainability Award), the Hannover EXPO 2000, United Nations Global 100 List, and others. More recently, we have empowered support 'hubs' in Indonesia, Japan, Cuba and other countries, taken part in major events including EXPO 2005, re-launched GreenMap.org as a multi-voiced, multimedia Web 2.0 resource and encouraged theme-oriented Green Mapmaking to highlight eco-tourism, cycling, waterways, etc. Today, in 2008, there are countless stories about the ways Green Mapmaking works to impact the communities being charted in 50 countries, including how they have benefit visitors and tourism resources. Explore locally-authored profiles (click Mapmakers or see randomly-listed impacts at GreenMap.org/impacts); GreenMap.org/youth gives quick insight into how we help young people value the nature near home and make local eco-tourism an everyday enrichment. We're looking forward to reaching the 500 Green Map project milestone, and seeing how Green Map project leaders interact with our new online OpenGreenMap mapmaking tool, as well as public comments, ratings and images it will collect. Celebrating and promoting sustainable tourism is core to our ongoing, ever-expanding effort!

Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers' marketing material.
An eco-designer, public educator and director, Wendy Brawer is best known as creator of NYC’s Green Apple Map and as Founding Director of the award-winning Green Map System. In addition to producing Green Maps, websites, books, exhibits and presentations, Wendy has taught, spoken and written on eco-design internationally since 1990. For developing this new locally-directed communication vehicle that maximizes engagement while minimizing ecological and climate impacts, Wendy was named Designer in Residence at Smithsonian National Design Museum (1997) and Woman of Earth 2005, among other honors. Being an ecotourist herself and working with wonderful Green Mapmakers worldwide is a delight!

Please write an overview of your project. This text will appear when people scroll over the icon for your entry on the Google map located on teh competition homepage.
Think Global, Map Local! By sustaining the ecological integrity and promoting the cultural uniqueness of each local place, Green Map System encourages inclusive participation in sustainable community development around the world, using mapmaking as our medium! Green Maps support local Green Mapmakers as they create perspective-changing community ‘portraits’ which act as green guides for tourists and residents. Mapmaking teams around the world merge our adaptable language tools and universal iconography with local knowledge and leadership to chart green living, ecological, social and cultural resources. Engendering awareness about sustainable sites and respect for local environment can bring community members together, extending the greening through collaborative improvement projects. By changing the way in which travelers and locals see, appreciate, interact with, and live in their society, Green Maps helps tourists and residents realize the interconnectedness of individuals with a larger community! Perceiving the world through a green lens can dramatically transform travelers' experience with their destination and even help them spread successful initiatives to their own communities. So come explore the energetic and diverse global movement of Green Mapmaking through our printed, web-based and interactive maps…We owe it to our planet, our future, our community, and to ourselves!

Contact Information
Ms. Wendy Brawer
Founding Director
Green Map System
PO Box 249
info@greenmap.org