Green Economy

The Green Economy is a set of industries that provide solutions—both traditional and innovative—that address the existential risk of climate change; drives job creation, investment, and industry diversification; and advances New York City’s social equity ambitions for a just green transition.

The green economy is the City of New York’s vision for an economic future that puts human well-being at the forefront by:

• Decarbonizing our economy to address the existential risk of climate change
• Diversifying our economic base and driving job creation in clean-energy industries to create new opportunities for New Yorkers
• Supporting the communities in our city that have historically been the most vulnerable to climate and environmental risk.

As outlined throughout New York City’s strategic climate plan, better known as PlaNYC, NYCEDC is taking bold actions to help achieve the City’s nation-leading climate goals, create new green economic opportunities, and build a more sustainable and brighter future for all New Yorkers.

Our work will not only support New York City’s nation-leading installed capacity and emissions reductions targets; our efforts now will also create high quality jobs; build a green workforce that meets current and future skills and talent gaps and needs; enables the identification, demonstration, adoption, and growth of nascent green industries and sectors; and works to build bridges into New York City for climate companies and capital that ensure a safe, livable, strong New York for generations to come.

NYCEDC Projects Included in PlaNYC

Proptech

Real estate tech, or “proptech,” is a set of technologies that transforms the way we design, build, sell, inspect, and operate real estate. In partnership with JLL Technologies, TRC Engineers, Urbansense, KO2, and Solar One, the Proptech Piloting Program provides piloting opportunities within select City-owned and managed real estate assets. The project seeks innovative proptech startups that are interested in demonstrating their buildings-focused climate technology solutions with NYCEDC, Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), and New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) to improve quality of life for tenants and address building sustainability.

Resilient Energy Studio

The Resilient Energy Studio is designed to cultivate local energy storage capacity across New York City through entrepreneur-led pilot projects and collaboration with community-based organizations, energy experts, and leading industry stakeholders. Participating startups will test their technologies in real-world environments across the city, producing valuable insights, surfacing adoption-readiness barriers, and addressing topline environmental justice priorities that center a resilient, battery-based energy future.

ConstructNYC

ConstructNYC connects small-to-mid-sized minority/women-owned and otherwise disadvantaged business enterprises (M/W/DBEs) with exclusive opportunities to work on NYCEDC projects through contracts of up to $3 million. ConstructNYC trains, provides technical assistance and contract support, and prequalifies participants to bid on opportunities from NYCEDC’s $9 billion capital project portfolio.

The Green Economy in NYC Is Just Getting Started

In addition to these projects that are underway, NYCEDC is spearheading a number of initiatives outlined in PlaNYC to be announced later in 2023 that will propel New York City towards a decarbonized economy and brighter future, including:

• The advancement of sustainable construction through the development and integration of Design Guidelines for Circular Construction, beginning with EDC's $9 billion capital pipeline
• The green economy industry and workforce action plan, which will present estimates of the current and future size of the green workforce in New York City, broken down by industries and sectors
• The formation of the Green Economy Advisory Council to offer guidance on long-term industry growth
• The Climate Innovation Accelerator Network, which will scale up best-in-class venture and innovation studio models that help startups research, test, and scale climate solutions to some of our toughest climate challenges
• The Global Climate Tech Hub, which will advance New York City’s industrial policy goals by providing spaces to midsize climate tech companies looking to enter the NYC market and support NYC’s climate policies and priorities