As net-zero commitments become the new standard for investors and companies, Ceres and the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) released a new first-of-its-kind engagement tool for investors to spur meaningful dialogue with companies on the role and use of natural climate solutions in delivering on those commitments. Natural climate solutions, such as forest protection or reforestation, are a common component of many corporate net-zero action plans, often used to offset companies’ greenhouse gas emissions.
New research shows that use of carbon credits increased by 81% in quarter 1 of 2021, with credits from natural climate solutions such as forest protection comprising the greatest share at 20.0 million credits retired. Much of this increase was driven by corporate demand to offset emissions. However, offsetting has long been controversial, and a lack of detail in companies’ commitments has made it difficult for investors to distinguish legitimate climate action from greenwashing.
In the face of this, The Role of Natural Climate Solutions in Corporate Climate Commitments: A Brief for Investors aims to help investors understand the role and use of natural climate solutions in climate commitments and provides clear guidance on how to facilitate engagements with portfolio companies on this issue. It also lays out expectations for climate disclosures — calling for transparency in critical steps along the way to net zero.
“Our new brief introduces investors to what we call the ‘missing middle ground’ in the debate over natural climate solutions and offsetting, helping them make sense of the effective and appropriate use of these solutions in corporate climate action plans. We hope to empower investors to help companies avoid actions that pose climate-related and reputational risks to their portfolios and instead, help them make investments that deliver on their projected promises to cut emissions,” said Dr. Meryl Richards, director of research for food and forests at Ceres and lead author of the brief.
Projections show that without natural climate solutions, emissions will not be reduced enough to reach the 1.5 degree C warming threshold that is required to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. But when used to offset emissions from companies in high-emitting sectors, such strategies attract greater scrutiny. Recent reports have called into question the value of nature-based carbon credits, creating growing concern from investors, NGOs, journalists, and other climate watchdogs that some NCS projects may inflate the projected emissions reductions that they promise, or result in harmful outcomes for communities.
The brief examines the appropriate use of natural climate solutions in corporate climate strategies, explores the investor’s perspective on the risks and opportunities associated with the use of natural climate solutions, and introduces key points of engagement for investors to guide company’s usage of natural climate solutions.
It specifically calls on companies to disclose:
Short-, medium-, and long-term targets that are aligned with a 1.5 C pathway,
A credible transition plan for achieving targets,
How much of the target will be met through the use of carbon credits or carbon removals,
The GHG crediting programs, suppliers, and projects from which they source carbon credits, and
Whether their carbon credit purchases are certified under a social and environmental standard.
The brief also calls for guardrails to determine the appropriate use of natural climate solutions by companies, to ensure that they raise the ambition of their climate commitments, provide credible and scientifically-sound climate change mitigation benefits, and contribute social and environmental benefits to the communities where projects are located.
About Ceres
Ceres is a nonprofit organization working with the most influential capital market leaders to solve the world’s greatest sustainability challenges. Through our powerful networks and global collaborations of investors, companies and nonprofits, we drive action and inspire equitable market-based and policy solutions throughout the economy to build a just and sustainable future. For more information, visit ceres.org and follow @CeresNews.
Miranda Cawley is the communications manager for the Water, Food and ForestsProgram at Ceres.
The historic city of Cleveland, Ohio is situated on the shores of Lake Erie and the banks of the Cuyahoga River. Like many major metropolitan areas throughout the United States, it is facing multiple challenges simultaneously. The climate crisis, loss of nature, and long-standing structural inequities threaten residents, the city as a whole, and the natural ecosystem. To combat these growing crises, The Trust for Public Land is working with government and community partners to address climate and park equity through a people and data-driven approach.
Parks are not perks — they are essential infrastructure for healthy, connected, equitable, resilient, and empowered communities.
The Trust for Public Land and its partners are using cutting edge data and science to support resilient planning efforts, economic benefit studies to demonstrate the value of increasing investments in parks and nature-based climate solutions, and deep community engagement to transform neighborhoods and deliver improved climate, health and equity outcomes.
Climate Smart Cities – Cleveland.With funding from U.S. EPA and NOAA, The Trust for Public Land partnered with the City of Cleveland to support resiliency goals using the power of parks and green infrastructure. The project team, made up of city officials and community-based organizations, developed a publicly available web mapping decision support tool that pinpoints where investments in parks and green infrastructure are most needed to improve local resilience and equity. The tool brings together environment, land use, health and equity data to enable multi-benefit analysis. The tool shows, down to the parcel level, where investments in parks and green infrastructure can simultaneously:
Cool extreme heat;
Absorb stormwater runoff;
Protect against lake and river flooding; and
Connect neighborhoods to reduce transportation emissions.
But identifying where park and other nature-based investments are needed to build local climate, health, and equity outcomes was only the first step. City officials and others wanted to know the value of parks.
Economic Benefits of Cleveland Metroparks. Economists with The Trust for Public Land conducted a study to evaluate the economic benefits provided by Cleveland Metroparks – the manager of the regional park system. The findings were astounding. The existing park system creates $873 million in economic value each year (figure1). That includes the over $20 million in stormwater infiltration and $8 million in reduced air pollution value a year. Supporting the Cleveland Metroparks system values, further analysis using iTree Landscape shows the tree canopy found throughout the city, including on parks and public land, stores approximately 171,000 tons of carbon (valued at nearly $30 million) and sequesters nearly 4,500 tons annually (valued at $767,000 per year).
Park Equity +: Building on the Climate Smart Cities partnership and the valuation of Cleveland Metroparks, economists with The Trust for Public Land went one step further and identified the five highest-priority neighborhoods for park development in the city and then projected the likely economic benefits of future investment. New and improved parks in these five neighborhoods would bring an additional 10,600 individuals, including 2,850 children, who do not currently have easy access to a park, within a 10-minute walk of a park. Park investments in these neighborhoods are also expected to produce an estimated $10.1 million in economic benefits over the next ten years. Click here to learn more and view the research summaries by neighborhood.
This work continues to build momentum for increased investment in parks and green space. In 2021, Cleveland became one of the first seven cities to participate in the Urban Drawdown Initiative – an effort to quantify the carbon capture potential of urban greening and improved land management practices.
While there is still a lot of work to be done, these planning efforts and economic valuation studies have laid the groundwork for transformational urban greening that can draw down carbon, improve resilience, and help address long-standing inequities for the community.
Eboni Hall spends her days split between research, increasing urban forestry education at institutions, assisting youth in navigating their urban forestry career path and mentoring students, all while working to achieve Tree Equity. Photo Credit: Eboni Hall.
When Eboni Hall first entered college, she thought for sure she was going to become a sports therapist. She wanted to learn kinesiology, the study of body movement and muscles. It was a sensible choice, something familiar, and a far cry from her ultimate path in urban forestry.
She’d grown up in Baton Rouge, La., entrenched in a love for natural areas, her childhood full of making mud pies, climbing trees and reading books outside. Despite that connection to nature, she’d never really thought about urban forestry as a concept, let alone a potential career path. “I remember thinking, urban forestry? That sounds like some- thing for tree huggers,” she says.
It was during a summer program called BAYOU, Beginning Agricultural Youth Opportunities Unlimited, at Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, that Hall’s world changed. Hall is young, Black and a woman, quite different from the typical description of a forester, a field long dominated by white men. “People of color don’t have a reflection of themselves in this field, and they get discouraged,” says Hall. “Maybe if people see I’m able to do it, they’ll think they can.”
The BAYOU program introduced Hall to an array of environmental science disciplines and job opportunities that redefined urban forestry for her. She went on to study the discipline at Southern, the only four-year university that offers a bachelor’s degree in urban forestry. Eventually, she earned her Ph.D. and now works as the senior manager of urban forestry education at American Forests. Hall has made it her life’s mission to provide other young people with the inspiration she found through BAYOU. In doing so, she is shaping one of the most important roles for building social and environmental equity and combating climate change.
Creating the Next Generation of Urban Foresters
Photo Credit: David Meshoulam.
People who work in urban forestry are addressing climate change, as well as social and environmental equity. City trees help absorb carbon from the atmosphere and make people’s lives better by providing shade, filtering the air, lifting moods and more. Trees also create jobs. But not everyone benefits equally from trees, largely because socioeconomically disadvantaged communities historically have lacked trees. A blossoming movement toward Tree Equity — which, simply put, is about ensuring every city neighborhood has enough trees so that every person benefits from them — is fueling the demand for more urban foresters. In fact, jobs for people who can plant, prune and maintain trees in cities are expected to grow 10% by 2028.
Attracting young people to the field is essential to growing that workforce. Hall and others like her are taking on the challenge, educating youth about urban forestry and related fields as a career and helping create clear pathways for professional advancement. The first step is making sure these future foresters understand that city trees are more than something nice to look at.
Trees as Critical Urban Infrastructure
In America’s cities, trees help the environment, but they also play a vital role in fulfilling our basic needs. That is particularly true during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Green spaces are a peaceful place to go to find refuge. When you don’t have access to them, you often are surrounded by unhealthy environmental conditions, and it has impacts on mental health,” says Suleima Mednick-Coles, one of Hall’s mentees and a student in the Black Scholars program at the University of San Francisco.
Making the connection between the importance of caring for trees and how they benefit day-to-day life is critical to growing interest in urban forestry, says Sarah Anderson, director of Career Pathways at American Forests. “Communities with low tree canopy cover tend to have higher rates of unemployment, and if you don’t have access to trees, you can’t make money caring for them.”
Job opportunities to plant and care for trees are expected to rise, thanks in part to the important role cities will play in the global trillion trees movement. In order to meet that need, American Forests has set a goal that by 2030 at least 100,000 people, particularly those from socioeconomically disadvantaged communities, will enter jobs in forestry. “I think it’s something that’s really a no-brainer to invest in,” Anderson says. “And it’s a well-paying one, with average entry-level tree workers earning about $20 an hour, roughly $40,000 per year.”
Paving the Way
Suleima Mednick-Coles is cobbling together her interests as an amalgamation of multiple majors and minors. Photo Credit: Suleima Mednick-Coles.
One obstacle to building an urban forestry workforce is that many young people don’t know how to access the field, or that it even exists. American Forests is working with Southern University and groups like Speak for the Trees, Boston to raise awareness of, and build bridges to, the field.
American Forests has developed two guides to help individuals map their journeys to urban forestry careers: the Career Pathways Exploration Guide and the Career Pathways Action Guide. Geared toward people who could benefit most from joining the field, these guides spotlight educational pathways and entry-level job training programs that train and place individuals who face barriers to employment so that they can enter the field. There are pilot projects in six cities: Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Detroit, Chicago, Providence, R.I., and Syracuse, N.Y.
The local programs also try to provide additional services, such as transportation and childcare, both significant barriers to job entry in communities where people are struggling financially. “It’s all about meeting people where they’re at, physically, emotionally, age-wise,” says David Meshoulam, executive director of Speak for the Trees, Boston.
Job shadowing, paid apprenticeship and pre- apprenticeship programs can remove barriers to finding viable careers. “Many youth live in the now and go into survival mode in order to provide for their families,” says Hall. “They can’t afford to stop working to improve a skill set.” That’s where partnerships, programs, resources and expertise provided by American Forests come into play.
A Field with Many Disciplines
Photo Credit: Bouyant Partners/American Forests
One exciting outlook in the field of urban forestry is how expansive it is. Traditionally, urban forestry has been synonymous with arboriculture and tree maintenance, Hall says. “But urban forestry encompasses so much more than trees alone.”
An array of disciplines have jobs that fall under the urban forestry umbrella: environmental law, hydrology, psychology, soil science, urban planning and public health, to name a few.
Currently, Southern University and A&M College is the only university in the United States that offers a designated degree in urban forestry. Students elsewhere often have to create their own paths. For example, at the University of San Francisco, Mednick-Coles is cobbling together her interests as an amalgamation of multiple majors and minors that encompasses international studies, sustainable development and environmental justice and African-American studies. To entice and prepare students, Hall hopes more colleges and universities will begin offering urban forestry programs, making more connections to other disciplines and utilizing an interdisciplinary urban forestry curriculum she developed.
Today, Hall spends her days split between research, increasing urban forestry education at institutions, assisting youth in navigating their urban forestry career path and mentoring students, all while working to achieve Tree Equity.
“Don’t wait too long to take that exam,” Hall teases, while on a recent Zoom call with Jordan Davis. Davis is about to graduate with a degree in urban forestry from Southern University. He entered college bent on studying engineering when he discovered the BAYOU program and a new future. The exam Hall is referring to is the
International Society of Arboriculture Credential, a requirement to become a certified arborist. Davis laughs good-naturedly. “I won’t. I won’t,” he says.
He’s thinking of returning to his hometown of Jackson, La., to provide urban forestry community outreach. A lot of students get interested in jobs they learn about in high school, Davis says. He wants urban forestry to be one of them. He’s thinking of someday launching his own arboriculture business. His family even started a company, Carpet Cuts, LLC, a lawn care business that incorporates tree care. His face beams with pure optimism.
Morgan Heim, a conservation journalist based in Oregon’s forest country, wrote this story for American Forests.
As an organization that was created specifically to find common ground and solve complicated conservation issues, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership knows a thing or two about the value of collaboration.
In the late 1990’s, though species-specific conservation groups had been successful at bringing fish and wildlife populations back from the brink, it seemed like we were fighting each other for the attention of decision-makers in Washington, D.C. Our late co-founder, Jim Range, recognized this and formed what was to become the TRCP to fill that gap.
Now, we are the largest conservation coalition in the country, carrying on Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy of safeguarding habitat and quintessentially American access to the outdoors.
Almost 20 years later, we are proud to forge new alliances within the U.S. Nature for Climate coalition, where the TRCP brings the collective voice of our 60 organizational partners, 100,000 individual advocates, and dozens of corporate partners to the fight for meaningful Natural Climate Solutions.
Our members may not look like the typical climate activists, but it would be a mistake to assume that American sportsmen and sportswomen are not engaged in this essential work. For one thing, we are on the front lines of climate change, witnessing firsthand the impacts on wildlife and habitat—from altered migration patterns to longer wildfire seasons. As temperatures spike, warming trout streams, we lose access to fishing opportunities. As invasive grasses consume the landscape, upland birds and other game lose critical forage. As summers lengthen, ticks take down big game animals before we get our shot in the fall.
Photo Credit: U.S. Forest Service
Hunter and angler participation is also critical to conservation funding in the U.S., where hunting and fishing license sales and excise taxes on firearms, ammunition, boat fuel, and other essential equipment go directly to state fish and wildlife management agencies. These dollars benefit all species, not just those that are pursued as game.
There’s an additional layer of value in nature-based infrastructure solutions that can restore fish and wildlife habitat while storing or sequestering carbon. So we’re educating decision-makers and our members on the benefits of natural infrastructure across all of our campaigns.
There may be no better time to advance Natural Climate Solutions with these win-win propositions: The stresses of the pandemic have driven more Americans to find solace in—and appreciation for—the great outdoors, but our nation is also still in the midst of the economic fallout from COVID restrictions. We need bold investments in conservation, including Natural Climate Solutions, to put Americans back to work, just as we have in past economic crises.
The ripple effects of decisive action now will be felt by generations to come—those who, as Theodore Roosevelt famously said, are “still in the womb of time.” If we meet our goals, they will experience more abundant fish and wildlife habitat, cleaner air and water, and the protection of resilient coastlines and functional wetlands. It’s why we do what we do, as both a partner and a partnership.
Despite the many benefits that trees provide, research suggests that tree canopy is unequally distributed in U.S. cities with low-income neighborhoods and communities of color often having less tree cover. The inequitable distribution of urban trees furthers social inequities and has serious implications for the health, wealth and resiliency of people living in cities. Two of U.S. Nature4Climate’s coalition members are tackling the issue of urban tree cover head on, taking slightly different approaches to this work. Taken together, these two studies highlight the important role urban forestry programs can play in slowing climate change, reducing social injustices, creating economic opportunities, and making communities more livable.
The Nature Conservancy – The Urban Tree Cover Disparity in US Urbanized Areas
Tree planting at Garden Place Academy in Denver’s Globeville neighborhood.
The research shows that inequality in tree cover between low- and high-income neighborhoods is widespread in the United States, occurring in 92% of the urban areas studied. On average, there was 15.2% more tree cover in high-income areas than in low-income areas. The average surface temperature differential was roughly 3⁰F, but in more than a dozen cities the differential exceeded 5⁰F. Patterns regarding race were similar, with neighborhoods of predominately people of color having lower tree cover and higher surface temperature in most U.S. cities.
The greatest tree inequality was found in the Northeast of the United States, where low-income neighborhoods in some urbanized areas have 30% less tree cover and are7⁰F hotter compared to high-income neighborhoods. Even after controlling for population density and built-up intensity, the link between income, race, and tree cover was significant. Cities with greater income inequality had greater differences in tree cover between high- and low-income blocks. Another important variable in explaining variation in tree cover was population density, with urban areas with higher median population density, such as New York City and Philadelphia having lower tree cover, presumably because there is simply less area to fit trees into more densely developed areas.
The Nature Conservancy found greater disparity in tree cover in the suburbs in low density areas compared to the urban core. Greater inequality in tree cover in suburban areas could be due to the relatively greater importance of actions on private land. It may be that low-income households are less able to afford the cost of planting and maintaining trees. Additionally, low-income households are more likely to be in rental units and are thus less involved in making decisions about land management, while owners are primarily interested in reducing maintenance costs and thus may have less of an incentive to plant and maintain trees. This finding has important policy implications since currently most of the funding and resources for urban forestry programs are directed to major metropolitan areas. Increasing tree planting and maintenance in suburbs could more effectively address tree cover disparities since there is less pavement and density allowing for more room to plant trees.
Overall, The Nature Conservancy’s findings illustrate that inequality in tree cover is widespread and pervasive in American cities and deserves policy attention. Tree planting will need to occur through public sector investment and maintenance on publicly owned land. Increased investment could be more strategically applied if government agencies responsible for urban forestry actively partnered with public health agencies to maximize benefits for both people and nature.
Additionally, tree planting needs to occur on private land and incentives and regulations must be enacted to motivate the private sector to engage in tree planting. The good news is that several programs like this already exist, such as tree protection ordinances, green area ratios in planning codes, and incentives for tree planting from electric utilities. In addition to establishing new trees, it will be critically important to maintain and care for existing trees, particularly mature trees that provide ecosystem services and benefits to communities.
American Forests – Urban Trees Help Slow Climate Change and Advance Tree Equity
When thinking about how to advance Tree Equity and mitigate climate change, it is important to consider projected changes to urban tree cover. The fact is, we are losing tree canopy in cities. And it’s not a problem that is going away. American Forests’ new report on Climate Change and Urban Forests found that in U.S. urban areas, we are losing one tree for every two trees planted or naturally regenerated. There are several factors that contribute to tree loss including, natural disasters (e.g., hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, insects, and diseases), urban expansion and development, improper planting practices and attrition. American Forests projects that 8.3% of existing tree canopy will be lost by 2060.
American Forests looked at county-level data nationwide across different scenarios for both existing urbanized areas and the projected expansion of these areas by 2060 to determine what it would take to achieve to increase tree canopy by 10 percent. To sustain urban tree cover through 2060, they found that about 25 million trees would need to be planted annually. On average, this planting equates to a national rate of one new tree annually for every 3 acres of urban land. However, maintaining existing tree canopy will not be enough.
A 10 percent increase in tree cover is needed nationwide to meaningfully advance Tree Equity and address climate change. This will require planting 31.4 million trees every year and an investment of at least $8.9 billion in urban forestry in the U.S. every year. If we are successful, trees would cover 43.3 percent of U.S. urban areas on average. In addition to planting more trees, it is necessary to increase investment in efforts to monitor and take care of existing trees, which are often larger and more established than planted trees. Scaling up urban forestry efforts would also support more than 228,000 jobs and store almost a billion metric tons of carbon – the same impact as removing nearly 200,000 cars from the road each year. And there would be a savings of nearly $1.6 billion a year from things like avoided asthma-related emergency room visits.
American Forest’ research can help guide decisions about how many trees we need to plant in the United States and the required investment to successfully manage our urban forests.
Key Takeaways
We need a multiplicity of voices advocating for urban trees and working to advance science, policy, funding, and collaboration around urban forestry. Studies like those conducted by The Nature Conservancy and American Forests should inspire conversation among environmental organizations, local government and municipalities, policymakers, health advocates and local communities to determine how to best address equity needs in cities and avoid devastating tree loss.
Caity Varian is the Digital Communications Manager for U.S. Nature4Climate.
Bass Hole boardwalk in Yarmouthport, Massachusetts. Photo Credit: Katherine Gendreau.
Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing the world today. Its impacts can be seen clearly as sea levels continue to rise, heat waves become more frequent and storms intensify. To help avoid some of the worst impacts yet to come, immediate action is needed to not only stop further greenhouse gas emissions, but also to remove the carbon dioxide (CO2) that is already in the air.
In March, Massachusetts passed An Act Creating a Next-Generation Roadmap for Massachusetts Climate Policy, a groundbreaking and ambitious law that sets a net zero emissions goal–the new global standard–and requires the Commonwealth to decarbonize our economy by decreasing our use of fossil fuels and harnessing nature to draw carbon from the air.
“The new law reflects Governor Charlie Baker’s and the state legislature’s recognition that climate change impacts are touching down in the Commonwealth’s communities today, and we need to address the causes and effects to protect our future,” says Steve Long, director of government relations for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in Massachusetts. “Once again, Massachusetts policymakers have modeled bipartisan collaboration and leadership to address climate change that should serve as inspiration for policymakers on the national stage.”
The law also provides a robust toolkit of policies and strategies—such as requirements and incentives to reduce emissions from energy production, transportation, and buildings—and ensures accountability by setting goals for interim carbon emissions reductions between now and 2050.
TNC hosted a Natural Climate Solutions briefing for legislators at the Massachusetts State House in 2019. From left to right: Emily Myron, Laura Marx, State Representative Smitty Pignatelli, State Representative Bradley Jones, State Senator Bruce Tarr, Kurt Gaertner of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Steve Long. Photo Credit: Loren Dowd/TNC
TNC led the advocacy for the inclusion of Natural Climate Solutions in the legislation. As the bill moved through the Senate and House of Representatives, we heard bipartisan support for the benefits of Natural Climate Solutions. During Senate floor debate, Senator Jo Comerford (D-Northampton) said, “We will not achieve the reductions we need without carbon sequestration and storage. It is our Commonwealth that has the lungs of New England.” And House Minority Leader Brad Jones (R-North Reading) noted that, “A comprehensive, multi-faceted approach is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Using forests and other natural and working lands to promote carbon sequestration is one of the most effective ways for the state to achieve its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.”
Natural Climate Solutions are strategies that protect, restore, and better manage natural and working lands—such as forests, farms, and wetlands—to remove carbon from the air and store it long term. We believe this law is the first in the nation to require the state to set goals for both reducing emissions from and increasing sequestration by natural and working lands, and to create a plan to achieve those goals.
Massachusetts’ forests currently remove the equivalent of nearly five million metric tons of CO2 from the air each year, an amount equal to nearly seven percent of our carbon emissions. Natural Climate Solutions have the potential to remove an additional one to two million metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year across the state—about the same amount of carbon as is emitted by 435,000 cars annually.
In addition to capturing carbon, implementing Natural Climate Solutions can bring communities many other benefits, as well. For example, protecting forests and wetlands helps clean our water and air and provides habitat for wildlife. Better managing farmland ensures healthy soils and can increase agricultural yields. And restoring wetlands and salt marshes helps reduce flood risks and enhances our fisheries. In urban areas, tree planting and creating green space can reduce the heat island effect, lower energy use in nearby buildings and reduce air pollution to improve public health.
As we move forward, it is also critical to ensure a just transition to a decarbonized economy and address the disproportionate impacts of climate change felt by underserved and overburdened communities. The new law includes important environmental justice provisions designed to enhance review of the health and cumulative impacts of projects proposed in communities with environmental justice populations and to ensure that residents have reasonable access and information to meaningfully engage in the public processes concerning those projects. TNC was proud to support environmental justice partners in advocating for these protections.
“The requirement in the new law that cumulative impacts be considered reflects the reality that the health and well-being of our communities and our environment are inextricably linked,” says Eugenia Gibbons, Massachusetts director of climate policy at Health Care Without Harm. “The environmental justice protections mark an important step towards ensuring that communities historically excluded from decision making that has left them burdened by environmental harm have reasonable access to information and an opportunity to engage meaningfully going forward.”
At the same time TNC was advocating for the climate legislation, they led a working group on the state’s climate council to inform the science and policy recommendations for natural climate solutions in the Commonwealth’s 2030 Clean Energy and Climate Plan. The plan prioritizes the state’s action for the next ten years and will guide implementation of strategies to meet emissions reductions targets in the law. TNC collaborated with climate justice partners to jointly develop a policy framework and recommend Natural Climate Solutions strategies for equity and justice.
“The legislation signed by Governor Baker is supported by a comprehensive, science-based analysis with significant stakeholder input that took place over a two-year period, culminating with the Administration’s 2050 Decarbonization Roadmap and Clean Energy and Climate Plan,” says Kathleen Theoharides, Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary for Massachusetts. “As we move toward implementing this nation-leading legislation, including important provisions around natural working lands and protecting our environmental justice communities, the Baker-Polito Administration remains committed to achieving our climate goals in an equitable manner that protects our most vulnerable residents.”
TNC in Massachusetts could not have realized our accomplishments without a team effort that provided an effective combination of policy and science, which included Steve Long, Laura Marx, forest ecologist and Emily Myron, policy manager.
An Act Creating a Next-Generation Roadmap for Massachusetts Climate Policy is formative legislation that could be emulated across the U.S., bringing people together across the aisle and leading to important and impactful changes for the future of people and nature.
Loren Dowd is a Marketing and Communications Manager at The Nature Conservancy.
Mid- to large-scale solar arrays, like the one at the H. Lee Dennison County Center in Hauppauge, Long Island, offer a host of benefits. Photo Credit: The Nature Conservancy
As seen from above, the solar carport at the H. Lee Dennison Building in Hauppauge, Long Island, twinkles in the sun. Since 2011, the solar canopies there, laid out in rows above the parking spaces, have generated shade in the hot summer months and carbon-free electricity all year round, along with a multitude of other benefits: improved air quality and improved public health; jobs that pay above the national average; reductions in greenhouse gas emissions; and income for Suffolk County, which has leased the parking lot to the array’s developer.
The even better news about this solar project and ones like it—mid-to-large-scale arrays of at least 250 kilowatts—is that they can play a pivotal role in meeting New York State’s nation-leading climate and clean energy goals. In fact, these arrays, also called commercial- and industrial-scale solar, have the potential to generate more electricity than Long Island uses each year—enough to power 4.8 million homes. And, according to a new report, they can do it without negatively impacting many of the places Long Islanders hold dear—the region’s farmlands and forests, its cultural heritage sites and open spaces.
The Long Island Solar Roadmap explores how to advance solar development on the country’s most populated island while safeguarding the landscapes people value most and expanding access to clean energy, especially for low-to-moderate income residents and people of color. Funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, spearheaded by The Nature Conservancy and Defenders of Wildlife, and informed by a consortium of 38 local stakeholders, the Roadmap offers a first-of-its-kind online mapping tool that identifies areas for responsible solar development and lays out clear strategies for lowering barriers to the clean energy technology.
“This report shows that in scaling up solar, we don’t have to choose between one ‘green’ good—clean energy—and another—undisturbed forests, open spaces, and farmland….With the right approach, we have room for it all.”
– Jessica Price, New York Renewable Energy Strategy Lead
Mapping Opportunities for Solar Development
Photo Credit: Ruslan Dashinsky/iStock
Like so much other work at The Nature Conservancy, this project got its start with the awareness of a problem. In 2016, several proposed large solar projects on Long Island were very publicly shot down because they would have required clear-cutting forests. “I was having lots of conversations with folks about where solar projects shouldn’t go,” says Jessica Price, The Nature Conservancy’s New York renewable energy strategy lead. “What I was really interested in talking about was where they should go.”
To help figure that out, The Nature Conservancy and Defenders of Wildlife brought together utilities, municipalities, solar developers, commercial property owners, farmers and community groups to talk about what they valued and how those values could be used to inform decisions about solar siting. The team also undertook an ambitious effort to digitally map Nassau and Suffolk counties, creating new computer tools to identify the types of land that should be off-limits to solar development and the areas where solar could be prioritized.
What they found, Price says, was a major opportunity: “Even though we don’t have large swaths of undeveloped land on Long Island, we have plenty of parking lots, warehouse roofs, brownfields, capped landfills and other areas already impacted by development.” Support for solar sited in such places is plentiful, too. Public opinion research conducted as part of the project found that 92 percent of Long Islanders surveyed endorse the use of mid-to-large-scale solar, and the technology is especially popular when sited on parking lots and rooftops and when projects are developed and installed by local companies.
Ramping up Solar and its Many Benefits
The report also explores the impacts that scaling up solar could have on reducing carbon emissions and improving public health. Installing just one-quarter of the solar potential identified in the project could cut carbon pollution equivalent to removing more than 700,000 cars from Long Island’s roads. And over 20 years, that amount of solar could improve air quality enough to save 36 lives and prevent as many as 28 hospitalizations. Ramping up solar to that degree could also create thousands of local jobs and improve the access of low-and-moderate income residents and people of color to clean energy.
Now, Price and others will take the map on the road or, for the time being, to virtual meetings with local officials and others interested in advancing mid-to-large scale solar on Long Island. “Solar power offers incredible benefits,” says Price. “This report shows that in scaling up solar, we don’t have to choose between one ‘green’ good—clean energy—and another—undisturbed forests, open spaces, and farmland. Even on densely populated Long Island, with the right approach, we have room for it all.”
Photo Credit: Forbes, This Start-Up Wants To Make Reforestation More High-Tech. Andrew Wight.
Whether’s it’s watching David Attenborough’s latest Perfect Planet films or using high-tech VR to experience the Amazon, many of us are familiar with experiencing the natural world through technology. We are, however, much less familiar with understanding the many emerging ways in which technology can and should help us protect, restore and more sustainably manage our natural resources.
At Nature4Climate (N4C), we are excited by the emergence of what we are calling ‘nature tech’ – a term that encompasses the application of modern technology to help enable, accelerate and scale-up nature’s ability to combat climate change and deliver a range of other benefits for people and the planet.
Left to its own devices, nature has been providing benefits to humankind since the beginning of time. Unfortunately, in far too many places, nature is under threat and we now know that proactive steps need to be taken care for our natural ecosystems. These actions are known, collectively, as nature-based solutions (NbS), which are defined by IUCN as ‘actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits’. A sub-section of NbS are natural climate solutions that are focused specifically on climate mitigation and adaptation.
In the midst of a global health crisis, the collapse of biodiversity, and a warming climate, the need for NbS has never been greater. But despite their potential, NbS still face a number of barriers. They require government policies and incentives; they require community support and engagement; and they require private sector understanding and investment, both in the corporate and finance sectors.
These are all areas that N4C, and many others, are working on. But it is also clear that, like most things, NbS can be greatly aided by innovative technology. Many see nature and technology as polar opposites, and by extension believe that “natural” and “technological” solutions to global crises exist in conflict. We believe the opposite, and so this year we will be turning our attention to ‘nature tech’ – technology that can accelerate the deployment of NbS at scale.
Defining ‘nature tech’
The notion of ‘cleantech’ has existed for more than a decade, and is synonymous with eco-innovation, encompassing high-tech companies that create environmental added value. In its 2020 report, the Cleantech Group estimated that more than $7.4 billion had been raised by its top 100 companies from investors spanning 45 countries – and the whole sector has been estimated to be worth about $4 trillion. Cleantech is defined as ‘new technology and related business models that offer competitive returns for investors and customers while providing solutions to global challenges’.
To date, definitions of cleantech have mostly covered companies that focus on renewable energy, energy efficiency, recycling, supply chain efficiencies, etc., with emerging trends in what is known as ‘ag tech’. At N4C, we believe there is huge potential for the growth of companies that apply technology advances – whether that’s satellite monitoring, drone technology, AI, genomic sequencing, block chain etc – for the benefit of nature and the climate.
So, how do we define ‘nature tech’? In its broadest sense, it is high-tech applications that enable, accelerate and scale-up NbS. N4C is currently conducting a landscape-mapping and scoping exercise and will release a more precise definition during the CogX festival in June in the UK. But based on our initial assessment, we believe it covers the following areas, albeit not exclusively:
The number of the companies that embody this trend are still relatively few compared to the numbers reported by the Cleantech Group, but it is increasing. For example, Pachama has attracted attention and funding for its combination of machine learning and satellite monitoring to protect forests by connecting them to global carbon markets. In Canada, Flash Forest has pioneered a high-tech approach that can speed up reforestation by 10 times. Moja global is developing open-source software to improve accuracy and lower the cost of developing a system to measure emissions from forestry, agriculture and other land uses. Finnish company Carbo Culture focuses on high-tech biochar solutions to enhance carbon sequestration in soils, while NatureMetrics uses cutting-edge genetic techniques to monitor biodiversity. Tech can also give us an insight into a previously obscure and hidden world. We have long relied on systems like TRASE to look at supply chain transparency and the cause and effect of commodity production and trade, and this technology is rapidly improving.
There are also initiatives focused on building support and funding for these companies: the Techstars Sustainability Accelerator was launched in partnership with The Nature Conservancy to accelerate investment in start-ups looking to help solve food, water and climate challenges. In December 2020, the Sustaintech Xcelerator was launched by DBS, Google, the World Bank and others to support climate innovators who are developing solutions that increase confidence in NbS.
Why is this emerging trend important? We believe that there are five good reasons for nature-tech – the bridge between the worlds of technology and nature – to be strengthened and invested in.
Nature tech has a vital role to play in accelerating the deployment of nature-based solutions, at a time when speed is of the essence. We cannot reach the goals of the Paris Agreement without large-scale deployment of natural climate solutions by 2030. It can also help us map, measure and deploy NBS at the right places at the right time.
Equally important are the jobs that can be created. This includes all the livelihoods supported by nature-positive investments, such as sustainable food production and reforestation efforts, as well as creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs to build nature tech businesses that may not currently exist.
Technology also enables the democratization of opportunity. Ideas can come from anywhere, and a bottom-up revolution in nature-based solutions is possible in every country, facilitated by accessible technology such as mobile phones and platforms such as the World Economic Forum’s UpLink that connects projects on the ground to experts and investors.
Transparency and accountability are especially critical in the race to net zero, particular for nature’s place in that race. This is where technology can play an outsized role, to help solve many of the existential hurdles that nature-based solutions to climate have faced – around monitoring, measuring, verifying and reporting.
And last but never least, finance. Nature-based solutions are much in need of investment, attracting less than 10% of current public climate finance. Technology can help derisk projects and play an important role in both creating a marketplace and attracting finance, by reducing transaction costs, enhancing supply chain transparency, and looking into past and future models and trends.
Instead of just using technology to experience nature – a poor substitute for the real thing – N4C believes tech can be a huge force for unlocking the potential of nature-based solutions. It’s time to bridge the worlds of nature and technology. We live at a moment of extreme urgency with a need for innovation, solutions and using the best tools that the modern world can give us. Nature Tech is just beginning. We think it’s the next big thing, the next big investment opportunity, the next revolution in thinking and solutions.
“Tech is a tool; it’s up to us how we use it. Nature now needs tech support too.”
Lucy Almond is the Director and Chair of Nature4Climate.
Laura Spellman, a “hot shot” firefighter, uses a drip torch to burn vegetation as part of efforts to contain a 2018 wildfire in Mendocino National Forest, Calif. Photo Credit: Cecilio Ricardo / U.S. Forest Service.
When the Creek Fire roared to life near Shaver Lake, Calif., last September, it chewed through the area’s overgrown, sickly forests, belching smoke and spitting out blackened, matchstick trunks.
But in forests owned by the electrical utility Southern California Edison, the Creek’s famished roar turned to a purr. The wildfire licked over the landscape, charring mature trees but not killing them. There simply wasn’t enough fuel — dense, dry shrubs and drought-stricken trees — to feed the fire to excess.
This was in large part thanks to John Mount, a retired California Edison forester. In 1979, Mount quietly began setting controlled burns on the utility’s land surrounding Shaver Lake. His fires cleared overgrown brush and weeded out small and unhealthy trees. At the time, this flew in the face of conventional forestry practice, which, for a century, had labored to extinguish all fires as quickly as possible.
Mount discovered setting moderate fires protects and rejuvenates the land, and prevents intense wildfire. Credit: John Mount.
As a forestry student, the stance had made no sense to Mount. California’s forests thrived before modern wildfire control. “I simply asked myself a question,” Mount said. “If lightning has been starting fires for millennia, why are we putting them out?” Mount discovered for himself what North America’s native peoples had known for centuries: Setting moderate fires protects and rejuvenates the land, and prevents intense, dangerous wildfire.
Now, after a record-busting fire season that scorched 4 million acres in California alone, it’s clear that our forests are starving for “good” fire — not just in the West, but across the country.
The gargantuan scale of the problem means that restoring flames to fire-famished forests won’t be easy or quick. With money and manpower, though, it can be done. “I’m more hopeful today than I’ve been for a while,” says Brittany Dyer, American Forests’ California state director. “Everyone is angry at the state of our forests. And once you get to anger, you get change.”
Native Flames
This 1905 photo from the southern rim of the Grand Canyon shows the parklike conditions once common in western forests. Photo Credit: U.S. Geological Survey.
The first Europeans to arrive in North America found a land of seemingly divine abundance: a profusion of nut trees and berry bushes, grassy clearings swarming with deer, parklike woodlands that you could drive a wagon through. It wasn’t providence they should have thanked, but native people.
For millennia, tribes across North America used fire as a tool to favor useful plants and animals. Fire regenerates bushes that produce food, dye, medicine and materials for baskets and tools. It aids oaks, and other trees that grow edible nuts, and opens up grazing areas for game animals. Ron Goode, the chairman of California’s North Fork Mono Tribe and an advocate for the restoration of tribal burning, explains: “The forest is a garden, and the native people took care of it.”
In the wildfire-prone landscapes of the western U.S., burning was also a matter of safety. It helped to prevent wildfires from encroaching on villages and kept extensive trail networks open as evacuation routes. People and wildlife used these trails when it was time to flee. “Lion has her kids, bear has her kids, deer has her kids,” Goode says. “Better hope no one is hungry.”
Tribes burned throughout the year, setting many small fires that added up in a big way. In California, an estimated 4.5 to 12% of the state’s land burned before Europeans arrived. Tribes burned around 2% of this total, or roughly 2 million acres, according to Goode. Now, in stark contrast, California burns somewhere between 50,000 and 125,000 acres a year.
The result of all that burning was a profoundly different landscape from the one we see today. Compared to today’s overcrowded forests, “the basal distance between trees was huge,” Goode says. “You might be talking 50 feet.” Burning created a rich patchwork of oak savannahs, meadows and pine-dotted slopes. Fire-adapted species flourished: not only oaks, but also sequoias, Ponderosas and other hardy conifers. Frequent, low-level fire also favored big, mature trees, which are more flame-proof than little ones. “It was well-documented that a ‘small’ tree was 6 feet in diameter,” Goode says.
Tribes set fires in all corners of the country, even in the East’s wet, fire-resistant woodlands. Many eastern forests that are now dim, dense thickets of trees and tangling underbrush were, for centuries, open, park-like spaces, with a far greater dominance of flame-resistant, food- bearing trees: American chestnuts, which are now functionally extinct due to disease, along with oaks and hickories.
Starved of fire, eastern oak-hickory forests are being outcompeted by northern hardwood species that grow profusely in ample rain and rich soil. This is bad news for nut-loving wildlife, as well as for communities that want to protect their forests for the future. Oaks and hickories are “better situated than northern hardwoods with dealing with a changing climate,” says Bill Zipse, a supervising forester with the New Jersey Forest Service. By letting less-resilient trees like beech and sugar maple overrun forests, “you might be setting yourself up with something more fragile now than what you started with.”
Flame Wars
Wildlands firefighters set “backburns” to control the 2020 Pine Gulch Fire, the second-largest wildfire in Colorado history. Credit: Kyle Miller, Wyoming Hotshots / U.S. Forest Service.
At first, Europeans didn’t snuff out all fire. Many colonizers actually adopted tribal burning methods, after seeing the good it did for the land. In the early days of the United States Forest Service, foresters debated whether total fire suppression was the goal, or if the “Indian way” of light burning should be.
The Great Fire of 1910 scorched all debate, along with 3 million acres in Idaho and Montana. This mammoth conflagration stunned the country and cemented the Forest Service’s zero-tolerance approach to wildfire. From then on out, all wildfire had to go, as soon as possible. In 1935, the agency institutionalized its infamous “10 a.m. policy” — the practice of put- ting out a wildfire the morning after its initial report. A decade later, Smokey Bear cemented the idea that forest fires are wasteful, even immoral.
Deprived of tribal burning, forests started to go haywire. The diverse mosaic of habitats that moderate burns once maintained turned to uniform sweeps of rangy, same-aged trees. Moist forests grew denser, wetter and less likely to burn. Dry forests, conversely, grew more likely to burn — not with your everyday “good” fire, but in tree-torching infernos. As Western forests racked up a deep “fire debt,” they grew cramped and unhealthy. Overcrowded trees competed for water, sunlight and nutrients, and succumbed to drought and bark beetle outbreaks that past forests had been able to withstand.
In California, the few advocates for controlled burning fought a current of entrenched belief.
“My mom even at one point burned a couple of times, and she got in trouble for it,” Goode recalls. “The fire people showed up, the sheriffs showed up. They all wanted to arrest her.” As for Mount, during his brief stint with the Forest Service before California Edison, he was “chastised quite soundly” for suggesting that fire could be good.
The legacy of over a century of fire famine — and decades of climate inaction — is now inescapable. Since 2014, drought and beetles alone have killed a staggering 162 million trees in California’s national forests. Fire seasons have grown longer, costlier and more severe. Last year’s record-breaking infernos in California, Colorado and Oregon underscored the apocalyptic cost of ignoring forest health. “The wildfires were not unforeseen or accidental,” says Dyer, of American Forests. “It was a bomb that was ready to go off.”
Florida on Fire
With 1.5 to 2.5 million acres of controlled burns a year, Florida’s fire culture sets itself apart. Photo Credit: Carlton Ward Jr. / The Nature Conservancy.
Hope for our fire-hungry forests might, of all places, come from Florida, a state more famous for spring break than land stewardship. But with 1.5 to 2.5 million acres of controlled burns a year, the Sunshine State might be better distinguished as the Flame State.
Here, for many landowners, burning is considered as much a right as life, liberty and happiness. “Some of the best, intuitive, artistic fire professionals I’ve ever met were private landowners who learned the art of fire from their families,” says Zachary Prusak, the Florida fire manager for The Nature Conservancy.
Prusak, who grew up in Daytona Beach smelling smoke from controlled burns, has worked with prescribed fire for 33 years. He’s had plenty of time to reflect on what sets Florida apart, fire-wise. The biggest difference, he suspects, is that state residents simply never stopped burning. The Seminole Tribe has been burning uninterrupted for centuries. Cattle families, some of which have ranched the same land for five generations, are vocal proponents of fire, which regenerates grass for grazing.
Florida’s love affair with fire translates at the legislative level as well. The Great Fire of 1910, and the policies that came after, were blips on the radar. Following severe wildfires in 1998, the state amended its laws to make prescribed fire easier, not harder. Now, people can’t be held liable for damages or injuries from a controlled burn unless proven “grossly negligent.” In addition, a culture of collaboration — a necessity, given Florida’s densely packed population — makes it easier to work across agencies, and across public and private lands.
Of course, nothing is perfect. Even with the statewide enthusiasm for firelighting, Florida’s landscapes are still hungry for more. Sandhill habitats and longleaf pine forests need to be sated with fire every two to three years, or run the risk of withering away. “To use an Alice in Wonderland metaphor, we are the Red Queen. We’re trying to run as fast as we can just to stay in the same place,” Prusak says. “We need to do more.”
Back to the Burn
The aftermath of a “good” fire: burned underbrush, unscathed trees. Photo Credit: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Florida is one of fire’s biggest fans, but it isn’t alone. Many other states, tribes and private entities have progressive mindsets and policies when it comes to controlled burning. New Jersey, for example, passed legislation in 2019 making it easier for private landowners to burn. The state’s Forest Fire Service boasts dedicated fire wardens, who manage both fire suppression and prescribed burns. “I don’t even see that in most western states, let alone most eastern states,” says Zipse, of the N.J. Forest Service. “That’s kind of a luxury.”
Ironically, the places that would most benefit from firelighting have historically been the most averse to it. Across the West, communities and regulators have long balked at controlled burns, and for understandable reasons. Smoke is a nuisance, and downright dangerous to people with lung conditions such as asthma. There’s always the risk, though remote, that a burn could spin out of control and hurt people or structures.
Attitudes can change, though, and fast. In Shaver Lake, John Mount overcame any initial resistance with good old public outreach. “That meant going to coffee shops every morning,” he says. “I would stop off and have a beer in the after- noon. I went to every Lion’s Club meeting, every Women’s Club meeting. They very quickly understood that having to put up with a little smoke … that I was really protecting their homes.”
In the wake of the 2020 wildfires, more communities are clamoring for prescribed fire and other fuel reduction work. Culture is less of a barrier now than scale: Western wildlands are vast, and massive slices are federally owned. Forty percent of land in Colorado is federal. That number jumps to 50% in California and Oregon, and 60% in Idaho.
For forests that depend on regular fire to stay healthy, this isn’t great news. The U.S. Forest Service and other federal land agencies are chronically understaffed and underfunded, and tend to be more risk-averse and less nimble when it comes to prescribed fire. Even as the merits of “good” fire have come into laser focus, the use of prescribed fire on western lands flatlined — and in some cases decreased — over the last decade. Perhaps not surprisingly, the only national agency that has significantly increased prescribed fire is the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Money and manpower are major hurdles. In California, for example, a whopping 20 million acres need to burn before forests and other habitats stabilize. Prescribed fire alone costs around $200 an acre — but because so many forests in California are too overgrown to burn without raging out of control, they first need to be thinned of excess brush and trees, to the tune of roughly $1,500 an acre. Environmental permits can cost as much as the on-the-ground work itself. “You’re looking at a price tag of potentially billions of dollars,” Dyer says.
Those pricey permits don’t necessarily translate to action. In Oregon, 1.3 million acres of federal land are permitted for prescribed fire, but are languishing without funds or foresters to do the work. Burn crews can be vanishingly scarce, and the complexity of coordinating with a mishmash of local, state and national agencies means that these crews are often unavailable during the narrow, unpredictable weather windows when it’s safe to burn.
Still, some promising changes are on the horizon. “A fire season like this kind of coalesces our attention,” says Courtney Schultz, a wildfire policy expert at the University of Colorado. “I do think there’s some good momentum around prescribed fire.” She cited the National Prescribed Fire Act of 2020, which would provide $300 million a year for federal agencies to set prescribed fires, $10 million for burns in areas at high risk of severe wildfire, and a cash incentive to any local or state government conducting burns bigger than 100,000 acres.
More money is on the way. In 2018, American Forests helped to pass the “Fire Funding Fix,” which secured stable funding for wildfire fighting, without cannibalizing money from other federal programs that benefit forests. In August, California announced it will begin using fire and other fuel-reduction methods on 1 million acres of land each year by 2025.
At the same time, a recent cultural shift towards “shared stewardship” is enhancing collaboration between federal and state agencies, nonprofits, tribes and other groups. This enables identifying the most at-risk forests on a landscape scale, rather than ownership-by-ownership, and using science to prioritize where to send money, expertise and manpower. American Forests is supporting this shift by convening meetings, providing research and advancing policies that align with shared stewardship.
Our forests are going to burn, one way or another. The climate crisis is fueling early springs, deep droughts and withering temperatures, guaranteeing ever-bigger, hotter wildfires. If we want to stave off devastating flames — which decimate forests, watersheds, homes and wildlife — we have to cut carbon emissions in half in the next decade, all while taking sweeping action to restore forest health. Firelighting alone won’t solve our forest woes, but it’s a big part of the solution. “We have to make friends with fire,” Dyer says. “Without it, the whole system will collapse.”
Allison Guy is American Forests’ senior manager of communications for American ReLeaf program.
