Natural Climate Solutions

Reconnecting People and Forests

Reimagining Our Cities

Carbon + Climate Change, Cities, Forest Management

Tree Equity: We all deserve trees!

The benefits of a healthy urban forest should be available to all.

Author: Alec Sabatini / ed. Rae Tamblyn

Alec is the content writer at PlanIT Geo™, a global urban forestry consulting and tree management software firm.

In the last few years, the phrase “tree equity” has become a cornerstone in urban forestry discussions and beyond, receiving significant media attention. Tree equity encourages urban foresters, urban planners, community leaders, homeowners, and us readers to ask two vital questions:

How equally are trees distributed within a community?
How can we ensure everyone has access to the wonderful benefits of living near trees?

TL;DR: Trees are great for people and planet! But, city and neighborhood trees are highly concentrated in affluent, white neighborhoods and sparse in communities of color and low income. We can specifically map and plan the next generations of urban forest plantings to make trees - and their benefits - more equitable.

The Roots Of Urban Forest Inequity

How did we end up with such an uneven distribution of trees? A key factor was redlining, a discriminatory housing policy that limited home ownership and wealth creation for racial minorities. Areas with higher investment had more green space for the houses, more trees planted for neighborhood beautification, and more money invested in tree care (pruning, watering, etc.)

Studies of 37 metropolitan areas show that areas deemed “too risky” for housing loans in the 1930s still have sparse tree cover today. Although redlining ended in the 1970s and other urban planning decisions rooted in systemic racism have been phased out of development plans, trees have grown slowly. These urban forest canopies still reflect and embody past planting decisions.

The Health Implications of Tree Disparity

This isn’t just about looks; it’s a serious health concern for residents and city leaders alike. In fact, urban forests are an essential part of our neighborhood health infrastructure. Trees create a host of meaningful, measurable benefits. Collectively known as “ecosystem services,” trees and urban forests are critical to making our cities livable and sustainable. Trees provide many physical and mental health benefits. Neighborhoods with fewer trees face hotter temperatures, poorer air quality, and fewer places for recreation, leading to serious health consequences. A full list of urban forest ecosystem services runs long, but here are some of the essential benefits:

Cooling Our Cities:

Trees are on the front lines of the battle against extreme urban heat, which as of 2022 is the number one cause of weather-related deaths in the U.S. Trees can drastically lower surface and air temperatures through shade and evapotranspiration (the exchange of water with air).

Cleaning our Air:

Trees are sometimes known as a city's lungs, but they can also act as the liver. Urban forests can remove tons (not metaphorically, literally thousands of pounds) of air pollution every year by absorbing gasses through leaves and trapping particulates out of the air.

Cleaning our water:

Trees improve water quality and support stormwater management through rainfall interception and infiltration (water absorbed by the soil). Stormwater infrastructure is not cheap. Cities, especially those with combined sewer systems, are turning to trees and urban forests as an effective, affordable answer to handle heavy rains as seen through the installation of rain gardens and bio-swales.

Improving our Health:

Trees support physical health via improved air, water, and urban temperatures, but they also offer well-evidenced mental health support. Having easy access to trees or even views of trees helps reduce stress, aid recovery, and enhance our well-being. The COVID pandemic made this connection especially clear.

Improving our Planet’s Health:

A tree pulls carbon dioxide from the air as it grows to make food and oxygen (sequestration) and stores it in roots, trunks, leaves, and soil (storage). We have a carbon issue, and urban and community trees can help offset our carbon emissions, transforming our cities from carbon problems to carbon solutions, one tree at a time.

So how do we know where to plant new trees?

Communities use urban tree canopy (UTC) assessments. These assessments use satellite or aerial imagery to pinpoint where trees and green spaces exist. UTC assessments map existing tree canopy and layer that with other geolocated data, including race/ethnicity, income, and public health metrics. This spotlights where trees are lacking for certain groups of people and where expanding the tree canopy could have the greatest impact on living conditions.

American Forests’ Tree Equity Score is a free tool that measures tree canopy equity. It uses factors like existing tree cover, population density, income, employment, race, and urban heat islands to create a score from 0 to 100. The lower the score, the greater the need for tree investment to ensure all residents benefit from a nearby urban forest.

The tool can also be used to set targets, determine relative need, and calculate benefits of trees planted, all of which can be included in dynamic reports. “Tree Equity Score equips community leaders and urban forestry professionals with accessible and powerful data to tell stories, plan for investment, and make decisions about where trees are needed most. Paired with political will, strong and inclusive coalitions, and shared stewardship of urban forests, this information is helping to change the game for Tree Equity” said Alana Tucker, Senior Director of the Tree Equity Alliance at American Forests.

Tree planters and planners can also follow the 3-30-300 "rule" - a set of guidelines for urban forestry that aims to increase equitable access to nature and improve health and well-being. The 3-30-300 rule is based on the idea that urban forests and other urban nature can contribute to psychosocial health and well-being.

3 trees: Every person should be able to see at least three trees from their home, workplace, or place of learning
30% canopy: Neighborhoods should have a minimum of 30% tree canopy cover
300 meters: Everyone should live within 300 meters (about a five-minute walk) of a high-quality green space

Shifting Perceptions

Tools like the Tree Equity Score and increased access to tree canopy data are raising awareness about unbalanced tree cover. Media coverage has spread the concept, and government leaders are shifting their planning and prioritization of urban trees and equitable planning. People are starting to see urban trees as a right, not a luxury.

This shift in perspective has led to the unprecedented allocation of billions of dollars for the US Forest Service Urban and Community Forestry Program. Most of these funds will go towards tree planting and urban forest management in disadvantaged communities. Urban forest managers now use equity as a key measure in their planning. Data from equity tools helps communicate the problem, secure funding, protect existing trees, and plant new ones. Correcting these imbalances takes time, but with passionate urban forestry professionals, great data tools, and increased funding, we can make meaningful progress.

Our cities, communities, and climate are better with trees. Growing equitable urban canopies ensures that the benefits of a healthy urban forest contribute to the well-being of all people and our one planet.

Together, we can make a difference. Find a local tree planting near you! Take a #TreeSelfie and tag #TreeEquity #forestproud.

We can’t wait to dive deeper into some of these topics in the future! Let us know:

What are you and/or your organization doing to advance tree equity?
What questions do you have about urban forests and urban forestry?
What stories from the sector should we cover in future blogs?

Shoot us a note: info@forestproud.org.

Natural Climate Solutions

Reconnecting People and Forests

Carbon + Climate Change, Forest Management, Forest Products, Innovation, Mass Timber, Sustainability

Wood Innovations

This Earth Day, we’re wading into the great Planet Vs. Plastic debate. And we’re #foresproud to throw in behind Planet, just like we do all the other days of the year.

Scaling Urban and Community Wood in Memphis

From Trash to Treasure

In November 2023, Memphis Urban Wood Academy participants focused on what makes urban and community wood uniquely scalable in Tennessee. The event took place at the heart of the Memphis Botanical Gardens and was full of dedicated practitioners working on solutions to divert urban and community wood from the waste stream into circular, regional bio-economies.

What to Do with Woody Waste

Regional variation in geography, tree species, natural disasters, and the wildland-urban interfaces add complexity to forest management across the nation; in urban and community settings, the social, cultural, and legal dynamics add additional complexity to the question of what to do with wood waste. Finding viable solutions to this problem was at the heart of the November 2023 meeting of the Memphis Urban Wood Academy.

Charlie Becker, USDA Forest Service (Forest Service), discussed the importance of municipal tree inventories and canopy assessments to determine how much wood will be generated in the future in the face of aging, diseased, and damaged trees and trends in storm damage and debris distribution. Ashley Kite-Rowland, Tennessee’s urban and community forestry coordinator, emphasized the need to develop urban wood management plans in partnership with solid waste departments and emergency response strike teams as well as local arborists and businesses.

Making Urban and Community Wood Profitable

Local impact and collaboration are at the core of urban and community wood’s potential. Participants toured the pilot site in the Klondike neighborhood where the Memphis Urban Wood Project, an initiative aimed at building a zero-waste urban tree site, is ramping up. This pilot site plans to accept fallen wood from local arborists and in the future, it may also accept storm debris as part of an emergency management post-disaster response. Local staff, hired at far above the annual median neighborhood income of $15,000, will help sort and process the wood and woody debris into the most viable products for resale. At a minimum, this includes lumber, wood slabs, and compost production. This work will be done on-site as a regional processing hub with a zero-waste goal and revenue generating model.

The Memphis Urban Wood Project is a combined effort of the Urban Wood Economy, Inc., and The Works, Inc. Roshun Austin, CEO and President of The Works, Inc., emphasized the need to build relationships with business owners, companies, entrepreneurs, local nonprofits, government organizations, and community members. Workforce development is a key element of this scaled model. It requires investment in local economies and individuals by offering wrap-around workforce development and training to a workforce that has not historically had an on-ramp to the forestry sector.

"If we're going to rebuild neighborhoods, what better way than to use what's already there?" - Roshun Austin; The Works, Inc.

Stacks of wood drying in the sunset

Stacks of boards drying in the sunset

Close up of urban wood boards

By scaling and piloting different models to connect urban and community wood with viable markets, the wider forestry sector can lead with purpose and commitment to advance climate action and social equity. In the words of Jeff Carroll, the CEO and co-founder of the Urban Wood Economy, Inc., “urban wood is an opportunity, not just a commodity.”

A huge “thank you!” for the leadership and funding support the Forest Service and Cal Fire invested in the last two Urban and Community Wood Academies. The efforts of Urban Wood Economy, Inc. (organizer) and dozens of wood utilization experts and advocates were central to the Academy experiences and inspirations.

Rae Tamblyn is the associate director of #forestproud at the Society of American Foresters. Jen Judd is the director of partnerships and outreach for Urban Wood Economy, Inc. This article was originally written for and appears in the Society of American Foresters Forestry Source, April 2024.

New to the urban forestry conversation? Check out our series on what the urban forests is, why it matters, why we measure it, and why we are #forestproud to see it grow.

Read the Urban Forestry Origin Story

Learn what the urban tree canopy is

Read about the need for green among the gray

Unfamiliar with the urban wood conversation? Check out our series on what urban wood is, why it matters, and what we are doing to turn waste to wealth, trash to treasure.

What is urban wood?

What do we do with urban wood waste?

Check out the Memphis Urban Wood project

Take a Deep Dive! In December 2022, the CA Urban Wood Academy was held but space was limited. The range of topics and expertise at the Academy was so valuable that CAL FIRE and the USDA Forest Service provided funding to capture the educational highlights. We're pleased to share a full 6.5 hours of FREE high-quality educational content, cut down and packaged into a virtual workshop learning experience via a series of presentations, hosted on SAF ForestEd. This workshop lecture series offers the opportunity to earn 5.5 SAF and ISA continuing education credits. This free virtual workshop is for anyone looking to build or refresh knowledge around urban wood utilization and how the wood product supply chain is key to making significant environmental, social and economic impacts on communities of all sizes. The information presented here ties together urban and community forest management, plans for reducing tree waste, scaling up urban wood utilization and production, creating zero-waste biomass campuses, and connecting to the demand-side of the marketplace.

Reimagining Our Cities

Urban Forests

RECLAIMED | The Urban Wood Project

The Urban Wood Project began as a quest to reclaim wood from abandoned city homes. It very quickly became about so much more.

Watch this next

Reimagining Our Cities

Rethinking Our Carbon Future

Carbon + Climate Change, Cities, Forest Products, Mass Timber

Carbon in the Built Environment

Managing for Carbon Across the Entire Forest Supply Chain

Harvested wood products are a critical tool for mitigating climate change and building a sustainable future. Understanding how to optimize the role of forests and forest products requires knowing the factors contributing to carbon flux and how to balance them.

Approximately 50% of the dry weight of a tree is carbon. Trees sequester carbon from the atmosphere and store it as they grow, making forests important for mitigating climate change. Critically, carbon is also be stored outside of forests in wood products made from trees that allow us to meet human needs while storing the carbon sequestered by trees in long-lived products.

The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that using wood-based building materials instead of other alternative building materials already avoids emissions of 483 million metric tons of CO2 annually—that’s equivalent to the annual emissions of over 100 million cars. In its recent assessments, the International Panel on Climate Change identified harvested wood products (HWPs) as an essential tool for sustainability.

How is it that removing trees from a forest can benefit the climate? Consider the idea of substitution, or the benefits of using renewable materials in place of nonrenewables.

The construction sector currently accounts for nearly 40% of global emissions. The global population is increasing and the total number of buildings worldwide is expected to double by 2060. If development is inevitable, renewable products are essential. Research shows that choosing to build with wood instead of concrete or steel could reduce projected emissions by 9%-50%. Unlike carbon and steel, HWPs take the carbon absorbed from the atmosphere by trees and places it into long-term storage. Then, more trees grow in the newly opened space in the forest, creating a compounding effect for carbon storage.

Managing forests can also help mitigate the emissions from tree mortality. Threats like wildfire and disease are endangering our forests, and using science-based management can help create forest structures that are more resilient to these threats.

When obtained by science-based, responsible forest management, HWPs provide:

a more sustainable substitute for nonrenewable materials with higher emissions.
an opportunity to create resilient forests less susceptible to mortality.
an important solution to keeping forests as forests.

We're #forestproud to showcase the newest SAF position statement on Carbon in the Built Environment. This position statement focuses on the capacity for harvested wood products (HWPs) to mitigate climate change through science-based, sustainable forest management.

Climate Tech

Reimagining Our Cities

Rethinking Our Carbon Future

Carbon + Climate Change, Forest Management, Forest Products, Mass Timber

Mass Timber + Affordable Housing

As our cities continue to grow, so do the challenges they face. Reimagine the way society lives, works, and plays by moving our cities from climate problems, to climate solutions.

Urban Wood Utilization

From Trash to Treasure

In a given year, an estimated 15 - 30 million tons of urban wood is wasted across the country, ending up in landfills, releasing carbon back into the atmosphere as the wood rots slowly away.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

At its core, urban and community wood utilization diverts wood from waste streams and landfills, creating value, driving new markets, generating employment opportunities, and storing carbon in wood destined for landfills. The wood comes from two main streams: 1) fresh cut and recovered from trees coming down in urban and community areas and 2) wood salvaged from building deconstruction.

Let's talk about that first stream of wood waste.

Planting and maintaining trees is an essential part of growing a climate-resilient city. Trees shade our streets and homes, reducing our energy costs and providing shade and cool spots in our increasingly hot urban spaces; they filter our air, clean our water, and provide beauty and a renewed sense of connection to nature. As they grow, trees continually store carbon, locking it away from the atmosphere.

No matter how you look at it, urban forests are collectively a living climate solution to today’s climate crisis.

But, as we plant more trees and grow our urban and community forests to meet today’s needs, there will inevitably come tomorrow’s question: What will we do with the trees when they come down? And they will come down, in whole or in part, from natural disasters, pests and disease, drought, new construction, homeowner maintenance, utility line needs, or old age.

Urban wood utilization began with a goal to explore new uses for urban wood waste but is quickly growing into a holistic means to drive a circular, bio-based urban economy that addresses complex ecological, economic, and social challenges across the country.

Recovering and reclaiming wood waste helps us build and grow local wood economies, create jobs, store carbon, and position cities to achieve sustainability and climate resiliency goals. Each new product and business built around urban wood creates a story and product that connects trees in our communities to homes and people in a tangible way. It drives community and employment revitalization and reduces wood waste, all while reimagining our cities—and our urban wood streams—as opportunities for innovation and climate solutions.

The urban wood movement is here to stay, and we’re #forestproud to see it grow.

New to the urban forestry conversation? Check out our series on what the urban forests is, why it matters, why we measure it, and why we are #forestproud to see it grow.

Read the Urban Forestry Origin Story

Learn what the urban tree canopy is

Read about the need for green among the gray

Virtual Workshop Access Link

Reimagining Our Cities

Urban Forests

RECLAIMED | The Urban Wood Project

The Urban Wood Project began as a quest to reclaim wood from abandoned city homes. It very quickly became about so much more.

Watch this next

Reconnecting People and Forests

Reimagining Our Cities

Carbon + Climate Change, Forest Management, Forest Products, Urban Forests

Urban Wood.

Recover. Reuse. Regrow.

Planting and maintaining trees is an essential part of growing a climate-resilient city. But, as we plant more trees and grow the tree canopy in our communities to meet today’s needs , there will inevitably come tomorrow’s question: What will we do with the trees when they come down?

And they will come down, in whole or in part, from natural disasters, pests and disease, drought, new construction, homeowner maintenance, utility line needs, or old age.

Trees store carbon as they grow. That carbon is locked away in its branches, limbs, trunk, and roots.

Here is the challenge: When trees come down in a community, they rarely get a second life. In a given year, an estimated 15 - 30 million tons of urban and community wood is wasted across the country, ending up in landfills, releasing carbon back into the atmosphere as the wood rots slowly away.

At its core, urban wood utilization involves diverting wood from waste streams and creating a second life for urban trees. Each new product and business built around urban wood reduces wood waste, drives new markets, generates local employment opportunities, keeps carbon stored longer, and creates an economy that connects forests to communities in a tangible way. Urban wood utilization offers immense potential to reimagine our cities—and our urban wood streams—as opportunities to develop innovative products and support climate solutions.

The urban wood movement is here to stay, and we’re #forestproud to see it grow.

New to the urban forestry conversation? Check out our series on what the urban forests is, why it matters, why we measure it, and why we are #forestproud to see it grow.

Read the Urban Forestry Origin Story

Learn what the urban tree canopy is

Read about the need for green among the gray

Virtual Workshop Access Link

Reconnecting People and Forests

Reimagining Our Cities

Rethinking Our Carbon Future

Carbon + Climate Change, Forest Management, Forest Products, Urban Forests

Urban Wood Utilization

Explore what actually goes into managing urban trees and forests and how communities are balancing economic, environmental, and climate goals.

Watch this next

Climate Tech

Reimagining Our Cities

Rethinking Our Carbon Future

Carbon + Climate Change, Forest Management, Forest Products, Mass Timber

Mass Timber: The Future of the Workplace

Northlake Commons | A mass timber project feature

Meet Northlake Commons: the future of the workplace.

TL;DR The future of workplace is good for people and planet. This is an exciting project with huge sustainability + climate implications. This project uses an innovative, eco-friendly building material to lower the overall carbon footprint of the building. Yep, we mean wood.

A mass timber, multi-use commercial office building has found its home on the north shores of Lake Union. Situated on Dunn Lumber’s original lumber yard (established 1913 and still active today!), the design pays homage to the legacy of Seattle’s rich timber history, while looking to the future of wood innovations, workplace environments, and neighborhood revitalization.

By 2050, over 70% of us will live in cities. As our cities grow, so do our challenges: dependence on fossil fuels, a growing disconnect with nature, and not enough housing and infrastructure to meet the needs of a booming population.

Emissions and materials are undoubtedly some of the construction sector’s greatest challenges. According to the United Nations, the built environment accounts for 39% of gross annual carbon emissions worldwide, a figure comprising operational carbon, the ongoing carbon emissions from its day-to-day use, and embodied carbon — all the CO2 emitted in producing materials.

While we can’t deny the need for more housing and more spaces to live, work, and play in cities and urban centers, that’s a lot of carbon emissions and a lot of non-renewable resources pouring into new builds. We need fresh solutions that are scalable, durable, renewable, sustainable, energy-efficient, and promote well-being for people and planet.

Fortunately, we can have our construction cake and eat it too. (Weird metaphor but stay with us here.)

Using wood, we have the power to reimagine our cities one building at a time.

But why is wood key to building a greener future together?

Trees draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through a process called photosynthesis. This process produces various carbon-based sugars necessary for tree functioning and to make wood for growth. Every part of a tree stores carbon, from the trunks, branches, leaves, and roots.

In one year, a mature live tree can absorb more than 48 pounds of carbon dioxide, which is permanently stored in its fibers until the tree or wood experiences a physical event that releases it into the atmosphere, like fire or decomposition.

By weight, dried wood material is roughly 50% carbon.

Practicing sustainable forestry, (grow, harvest, replant, regrow ) means that the full cycle of forests and wood products store carbon and have the greatest potential to lessen climate change impacts and keep carbon locked away in forests and wood. From constructing tall buildings to enhancing materials at the microscopic scale, wood products of any size can have big, positive environmental impacts in the fight to limit climate change.

Mass Timber is an essential product in our forest climate-solution toolbox that is helping us build better buildings, faster, and more sustainably. Mass timber - combined with light-frame construction - can deliver on value, longevity, speed of construction and flexibility. Mass timber helps us build faster and more efficiently, keeps carbon locked away, and allows us to provide homes that are good for people and planet.

This new office building will incorporate heavy timber and mass timber both indoors and out, opening onto the Burke-Gilman trail and the water beyond. The structural system is comprised of CLT panels atop glulam columns and girders, with a steel Buckling-Restrained Braced Frame lateral system. This innovative mass timber structural system has a much lighter footprint than other structural alternatives; a Life Cycle Assessment of the embodied carbon in the timber has been calculated to understand the carbon impact and emissions implications as compared to more conventional construction types.

Cities have long been labs for this type of innovation. So, even as our urban challenges continue to mount and grow in complexity, we are entering one of the most compelling opportunities in a generation to reimagine the way society lives, works, and plays. In transitioning our built environment from one that emits carbon to one that stores it, we are answering the needs of society for housing and infrastructure, while also answering the needs of our planet to do it more sustainably.

The ability for a building to act as a climate solution is incredibly valuable. Mass timber locks in and stores carbon in a way traditional building materials don’t. As a society, we are increasingly focused on the carbon and sustainability story associated with the buildings we build. With the building industry currently responsible for an estimated 20% of global emissions, mass timber is a climate game changer.

The Mass Timber Effect estimates that if we were to double the number of mass timber buildings built every year, the building industry could store more carbon than it emits by 2034.

Partners on this project include TimberLab, Swinerton, Weber Thompson, Spear Street Capital, DCI Engineers, and the Hess Callahan Grey Group. The Mass Timber materials were sourced our friends Kalesnikoff. This project also received a $250,000 Wood Innovation Grant from the U.S. Forest Service.

It is no wonder our friends and partners on this project and a climate-engaged workforce are looking to Mass Timber as an economic, social, and environmental solution. An innovative landmark, Northlake Commons elevates the human experience in the workplace, curating an building that brings professional and personal engagement together into a built environment that represents the future of city, of forests, and of our planet.

Climate Tech

Reimagining Our Cities

Rethinking Our Carbon Future

Carbon + Climate Change, Forest Management, Forest Products, Mass Timber

Mass Timber + Affordable Housing

As our cities continue to grow, so do the challenges they face. Reimagine the way society lives, works, and plays by moving our cities from climate problems, to climate solutions.

Big Green Health Machines

Why Urban Trees Are Good For People + Planet

Carbon | Instagram Story | 01_ContentLibrary

Author: Alec Sabatini

Alec is the content writer at PlanIT Geo™, a global urban forestry consulting and tree management software firm.

Big Green Health Machines

TL:DR: Urban forests are good for people and planet. Read on for exactly how the tree outside your window makes you - and the planet - healthier.

Have you heard of a nature prescription? In countries around the world, doctors are prescribing time in nature as part of their treatment plan for patients. The practice has been spreading as study after study links nature and positive human health outcomes. The results of trees on health are both physical and mental. Modern science is defining many of the correlations, while some of the causes may be traced back to humanity’s origin.

The proven connection between nature and human health is also becoming a serious motivator for cities to support their urban forests.

Big Green Air Filters

There is a reason you don’t see city-scented candles. (Okay fine, I did check and there are some companies smartly marketing city-themed candles, but I have been to NYC and my strongest nose memories were not bergamot and jasmine.)

My point is, breaths of fresh air can be hard to come by in cities. The concentration of engines and industry loft pollutants into the air while traffic stirs up fine particulates. Trees are a proven method of combating urban air pollution, a major source of respiratory diseases.

Tiny pores in tree leaves, called stomata, take in air that includes pollutants like ground-level ozone and carbon monoxide. These gasses then diffuse and react with the inner leaf, removing them from circulation. Particulate matter (PM) is another common and harmful air pollutant. Trees temporarily “catch” PM on their leaves and stems where the next rain can wash them down to the soil.

For example, the urban forest of Greenville, North Carolina removes an estimated 648,000 pounds of pollution annually. The avoided health effects and other economic costs of that pollution are valued at over $1.2 million USD!

Pollution in cities contributes to increased asthma rates and is a leading contributor of global emissions and climate change. Bad air quality is bad for people, bad for planet. Urban trees lower asthma rates, clean the air, and help make the places where many of us live, work, and play healthier.

Big Green Carbon Machines

Trees are without a doubt the best carbon capture technology in the world. When tree leaves breathe, they take in carbon dioxide, release oxygen and store carbon in their trunks.

Wood is an incredible carbon sink because it is mostly made of carbon (about 50% by dry weight.) In addition to cleaning the air, releasing oxygen, and helping stop pollutants from washing into the water, trees lock away carbon as they grow. Keeping harmful pollutants out of the atmosphere and out of our lungs is a win-win.

Big Green Air Conditioners

Extreme heat is a major health threat for many cities. Climate change and the urban heat island effect are sending urban thermometers soaring, particularly in low-income and nonwhite neighborhoods. Consistent, high heat aggravates existing health conditions and is lethal in its own right.

It's a problem so severe some cities are appointing chief heat officers to lead the charge against rising temperatures. Urban trees are a key defense in any heat mitigation battle plan. Through shade and evapotranspiration (exchanging water vapor with the air) surface temperatures under a tree can be 20-45℉ cooler than adjacent unshaded areas.

Big Green Mood Boosters

There are abundant studies connecting greenspace with a range of mental health improvement. The COVID pandemic amplified the importance of urban greenspace as vital spaces for diversion and decompression. But why do large leafy things make us feel better?

Evolution probably plays a part. This four-walls-and-a-roof life is relatively new in the course of human history. The theory is that over millions of years, our ancestors who had stronger connections to nature held an evolutionary advantage (i.e. better at seeking shelter, food, and water) and that relationship has carried through to today.

A more recent explanation is that trees correlate or cause many factors humans benefit from, such as increased wildlife, comfortable environments for gathering and relaxing, and appealing aesthetics. These all have proven to ease our minds and boost our well-being. The street-side trees and park groves that make up the urban forest are the closest form of nature for most urbanites. Therefore keeping a healthy urban forest is invaluable for public health.

Big Green Health Rebalancers

Tree equity (balanced distribution of tree canopy across cities) is important. Residents who live in poorly forested neighborhoods are being denied a benefit all humans deserve: health.

Urban foresters have a lot of factors to weigh when planting new trees, and health impacts are becoming a common part of any prioritization plan. New data tools are emerging to push these efforts forward, such as NatureScore™, which scores the health impacts of surrounding nature based on any address in the continental United States.

For more on the importance of urban forests, check out our blog series on urban forests + poke around the site. Have a favorite street tree you want to give a social shout out to? Snap a selfie & tag us #forestproud.

Read the Urban Forestry Origin Story

Learn what the urban tree canopy is

Read about the need for green among the gray

Reimagining Our Cities

Urban Forests

RECLAIMED | The Urban Wood Project

The Urban Wood Project began as a quest to reclaim wood from abandoned city homes. It very quickly became about so much more.

Watch this next

Climate Tech

Reimagining Our Cities

Rethinking Our Carbon Future

Carbon + Climate Change, Forest Management, Forest Products, Mass Timber

Mass Timber + Affordable Housing

HEARTWOOD | A mass timber project feature

We recently explored the value of mass timber as a building solution with Jason McLin, director of real estate development finance for Community Roots Housing. The Heartwood project will bring workforce housing to central Seattle, filling a critical need for middle-income housing in the city. Equally critically, this project makes use of an innovative, eco-friendly building material (cross laminated timber or CLT), which lowers the overall carbon footprint of the structure. When completed, Heartwood is anticipated to be one of Washington’s tallest CLT buildings.

This is an exciting project with huge sustainability + climate implications.

By 2050, over 70% of us will live in cities. As our cities grow, so do our challenges: dependence on fossil fuels, non-recyclable waste, insufficient housing, and a growing disconnect with nature. Generating affordable housing is undoubtedly one of the construction sector’s greatest challenges. We need fresh solutions that are scalable, durable, energy-efficient, and promote well-being.

Fortunately, we have the power to reimagine our cities one building at a time.

It is no wonder organizations like Community Roots Housing (CRH) - an affordable housing non-profit, based in Seattle, WA - are looking to Mass Timber as an economic, social, and environmental solution.

The Mass Timber Effect estimates that if we were to double the number of mass timber buildings built every year, the building industry could store more carbon than it emits by 2034.

Partners on this film + project include Community Roots Housing, American Wood Council, TimberLab, Swinerton, and atelierjones llc. Materials sourced in part from Kalesnikoff + Freres. This project also received a $250,000 Wood Innovation Grant from the U.S. Forest Service to validate the feasibility of Type IV-C multifamily housing.

Reimagining Our Cities

Biomass + Renewable Energy, Carbon + Climate Change, Careers, Cities, Forest Management, Innovation, Mass Timber, People, Products, Urban Forests

FORESTS: Reimagining Our Cities

For the first time in history, more than 50 percent of the world’s population lives in a city.

Watch this next

Forest 101

Natural Climate Solutions

Reimagining Our Cities

Carbon + Climate Change, Forest Management, Forest Products, Urban Forests

Urban Tree Canopy. AKA the urban forest from above.

What is it, why do we measure it, and why does it matter for climate goals?

Author: Alec Sabatini

Alec is the content writer at PlanIT Geo™, a global urban forestry consulting and tree management software firm.

When people talk about urban forests or urban forestry, they mention urban tree canopy - and they mention it soon, and mention it often. I only lasted 12 words before typing it. Point proven? So, what exactly does it mean when we refer to urban tree canopy, and why are cities around the world so focused on tracking it?

For an individual tree, the canopy refers to the spread of leaves and branches. In the context of urban forestry, the term urban tree canopy refers to the collective canopies of all trees within a defined area, like the city limits. When viewing a city from above it essentially measures how much of that view is covered by green vs. gray assets, such as roads, buildings, or parking lots. There is a careful science to getting this measurement as accurate as possible, one that has been improving in leaps and bounds over the last 20 years.

Picking Plants Out Of Pixels

The process is called an urban tree canopy assessment. Imagery (either from satellites or plane flyovers) is run through a computer analysis to classify each pixel into certain categories. The categories can include tree canopy, non-canopy vegetation (grass, shrubs), open ground, impervious surfaces (buildings, roads), and water (ponds, rivers).

Then other geospatial datasets are blended in to further improve the accuracy. For the purpose of urban forest management, the final product is often simplified down into three types: where trees are, where trees could be, and where trees shouldn’t be (like impervious surfaces or sports fields). For example, an urban tree canopy for Washington, DC found the city was 37% tree canopy, 24% possible planting area, and 39% impervious surfaces

But wait! There’s still a couple layers left on this data onion. Thanks to the census and other surveys there is a ton of socioeconomic information tied to every block and neighborhood in the country. By overlaying tree canopy data on top of demographic data, urban foresters can identify significant trends, such as the disproportionate concentration of canopy in whiter, wealthier neighborhoods (a widespread pattern at the center of the tree equity movement) or the correlation between sparse trees and higher rates of asthma, heart disease, and skin cancer.

Why Measuring Tree Canopy Is So Helpful

There are three chief reasons tree canopy data is invaluable for cities.

Trees grow, and trees go, and we need to know.

Urban tree canopies are in perpetual motion. Tree growth and regeneration add canopy, while the destructive forces of development, disease, pests, and storms take it away. It’s hard to gauge from the ground, but taking a top-down view allows urban forest managers to track the change of canopy in every nook of the city, including both public and private lands. In fact, for most cities, the majority of their urban forests are on private residential land, so having this comprehensive perspective is vital.

Invest in the right trees in the right place, for max impact

Maps are a powerful storytelling tool. All of the data points from an urban tree canopy assessment can be combined into a clear, visual story on a map. Urban forest managers use software to map out tree canopy, and then mix in other metrics, such as available planting space and prevalence of urban heat, to develop a priority planting plan

Urban forest managers use software to visualize trees in cities

Close up of data used to visual urban forests

Data rules. Back it up for the boss and the budget.

Urban forestry departments need to make the most of a limited budget, so it’s crucial to invest their available resources for new trees in the best possible areas.
Frequently, trees and landscaping are treated as an afterthought instead of an essential piece of the urban fabric. “Leadership within community forestry programs will always struggle to get outside agencies to buy into the value of trees without having canopy assessment data,” said Rob Davis, City Forester of Grand Junction, Colorado. Tree canopy data helps urban forest departments build buy-in from government leadership so they can justify their budgets, increase investment in tree planting, and upgrade city policies. Having maps and data that document exactly how tree cover is changing and how it is distributed across a city moves conversations into a discussion of reality instead of hypotheticals.

What’s Your Community’s Canopy Cover?

Find yourself a high vantage point, a plane or hot air balloon, or hop on Google Maps and take a look at your town from above. Try to make a rough estimate of how much of the view is covered by greenery. It’s worth checking to see if your community has completed an urban tree canopy assessment with a quick web search.

There is no magic number all cities should be seeking for canopy coverage. Climate, development pressures, and available space has a huge impact on existing tree canopy. Cities in the Southwest are often in the 5-15% range, while East Coast cities tend towards 30-40%. What is consistent is urban forests and their canopy are a key piece of the puzzle for addressing many of the top challenges facing cities today.

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Facing a changing climate and a rapidly urbanizing population, cities across the world are searching for solutions to turn the cities of the future into carbon repositories, not carbon problems. Frequently, trees are treated as an afterthought instead of an essential piece of the urban fabric. Not in Boise, Idaho.

The City of Boise is leading a new movement for community recovery and climate resiliency. While there is no single silver bullet for solving climate change, forests offer powerful carbon benefits and climate solutions. Long known as concrete jungles, it’s on us to fundamentally reimagine our cities, growing them into climate solutions, not part of the problem. The City of Trees Challenge, launched in partnership with the The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in Idaho, the Arbor Day Foundation, USDA Forest Service and Treasure Valley Canopy Network in 2020, has an ambitious goal: to plant 100,000 trees, one for every household in Boise, over the next 10 years.

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In Boise, climate action isn’t just an environmental issue. It’s a public health and economic development necessity. Climate change is continuing to shift the Treasure Valley's seasons, rainfall, snowpack, air quality and water availability. These changes impact the health, quality of life, and yes, the livelihoods of everyone in the city. By harnessing the power of trees as a climate solution, and the passion of the city’s residents, Boise is positioned to grow its urban forests, and showcase the true treasure of Treasure Valley: its trees.

“We’ve got to act now if we’re really going to impact climate change. And trees are such an important part of that,” says Elaine Clegg, Boise City Council President, in this inspiring film by #forestproud friends + partners at the collaborative US Nature4Climate.

Urban forests put trees to work for our cities, connecting people with outdoor spaces, sheltering wildlife, lowering urban temperatures, and driving climate resilience by storing carbon and filtering our air and water. One tree is needed to offset emissions for every 2 gallons of gas.

Urban forests are a scalable solution to today’s most pressing urban challenges. It’s essential that our urban trees grow alongside our cities. Collectively, our urban forests are climate solutions. It’s up to us to plant, steward, and build a climate resilience urban forest.

New to the urban forestry conversation? Wondering why urban trees are so critical to helping us reimagine our cities and rethink our carbon future?

Check our blog posts ft. urban forests:

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