Our first encounter with the concept of the Green Map was in 1995 at Tennen Design Forum’s International Conference, held at Honen-in Temple in Kyoto. The 3-day conference on designers’ contribution to environmental solutions was full of stimulating proposals, including a workshop hosted by Wendy Brawer of Green Map System. Our group walked around Honen-in’s grounds designing icons for a sketch map. Twelve of these were officially adopted for the first version of Green Map Icons.

A year later, our Tennen Design Forum core group joined the "Climate Forum Kyoto Net" and announced our plans to create Kyoto’s Green Map in two languages, English and Japanese. On Earth Day 1997, we distributed a test map (2 sides A4, monotone, 1000 copies), calling for project participants and support. We held orientation sessions to discuss Kyoto's present situation. The number of volunteer participants grew to 60 and we created postcards and research sheets to collect site ideas at our monthly workshops and field trips. By September, the information gathering process was finished and collected on a database. We verified the relevance of each site and filtered 600 down to 485 sites. Ten designers and two translators created the map in the weeks leading up to December’s COP3 Conference. We also planned a bus tour of Kyoto's environmental destruction, an exhibition of Green Maps from across the world and exchange workshops with worldwide environment-related NGOs during COP3.

The 1997 citywide Kyoto Green Map uses light purple as the base color tone, derived from an old expression Sanshi-Suimei, meaning “Purple Mountain, Lucid Water”—reflecting the appearance of mountains rich in nature and fresh air, and the striking clarity of pure streams. This design concept refers to historical maps of Kyoto, illustrating Kyoto's characteristic landscape. One side charts the entire city, and the reverse emphasizes three regions: Sagano/Arashiyama, Central Kyoto, and Sakyo ward. These are either major sightseeing areas or districts surrounding the COP3 Conference. We also applied congruent grids on both sides, so that each site could be easily located by users.