New York’s Empire State Building will shine in regal purple and gold on Saturday to honor the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth.

The Empire State Building, the historical landmark that has graced New York City’s skyline since 1931, is a building of the past as much as it is a building of the future. Despite its golden age, the iconic skyscraper’s machines and systems have been revamped, turning the asset into a new kind of icon, one that serves as a model to other older buildings for how to consume energy efficiently, interact with the electrical grid and operate more sustainably.

New York’s most famous skyscraper shrank its planet-warming emissions by 40 percent. Can the rest of the city do the same?