About Urban Green

Urban Green Council’s mission is to transform buildings for a sustainable future in New York City and around the world. We develop cutting-edge policy for New York City that drives the conversation nationally and globally;  we educate a broad range of professionals (over 30,000 and counting); and we research solutions that are amplified through coverage in major publications like The New York Times. Urban Green pursues activities that have scalable impact: We focus exclusively on buildings, which account for 40 percent of carbon emissions nationally and over 60 percent in most cities.

We target professionals— builders, construction professionals, real estate owners, property managers, engineers, architects and government officials, to name a few—rather than the general public. “Influencing the influencers” allows us to move the needle on sustainability through a comparatively small portion of the population.

Driving policy is critical to achieving scale. By improving building codes and rules, we change every building that is newly constructed or renovated in NYC for the better. Our second path is education. In addition to explaining policy changes or increasing compliance, our educational offerings fill gaps in industry knowledge and promote cutting-edge practices that advance a broad-based understanding of green building. Research underpins our education and advocacy efforts. By tapping into data assets we’ve developed, such as Metered.nyc, we’re able to identify energy use trends and recommend actionable solutions.