Green upgrades making industrial neighborhood

@cntrygurl516 

From what you write you have not enacted the green initiatives NAP. Do that and then the other Green NAPs as well.

@cntrygurl516  I don't know what neighborhood you're playing in.  If you're in Evergreen Harbor, then green initiatives are available and are super powerful.

If you're in Willow Creek or Sulani or whatever, then I don't think those NAPs are available.  I've been having issues as well where I let a trash can on a green lot with reduce and recycle overflow and gave the neighbor a pet and suddenly my neighborhood wasn't green any more (what?).  I've been struggling to move it back. (I assume I'm being punished for my trash can rather than the pet having an impact.)

I've found that the Eco lot trait does help.  Also, playing in the Goth house, very small changes had a huge impact while I struggled and struggled and struggled in a more modest Willow Creek neighborhood, and I'm not sure why.  If you have any blank lots in your neighborhood you can cover them with trees as well.  Just spam trees.  😉

When I was trying to turn my modest neighborhood in Willow Creek green, what seemed to help the most was sending my Sims door to door to do Eco Upgrades on all the neighbor's appliances.  All energy efficient/water saving upgrades were added. Perhaps that's what helped so much with the Goth house;  that neighborhood is 3 houses and I controlled 2 with my Sims, while the more modest neighborhood was 5 houses.  So 2/3 of the houses had eco-friendly appliances, as opposed to 1/5.

I hope that helps!

[Edited to add...]  Okay, I saw some advice to visit edited lots in live mode, so I sent my Sims visiting and the meter is spinning towards green.  I did that in my other save when I went door to door upgrading appliances, so... yeah.

Different worlds tend to trend one way or the other, largely dependent on the default building materials in the area. Sulani is super easy to turn green, for example (as long as you stay away from bonfires), while Windenburg and San Myshuno trend industrial. In addition to some of the other suggestions here, you can always build on your neighbors' lots to change up their building materials or add eco power generation, and if there's a Community Space lot in the neighborhood, keep it on Maker or Garden.