Blueprints for a Green City

This briefing by RMI argues that integrating urban nature—such as forests, street trees, and bodies of water—into city planning reduces greenhouse gas emissions, lowers energy costs, and improves equity. The document highlights that the global value of urban nature's benefits is nine times the costs, and it calls for a significant increase in annual investment to reach a potential $2 trillion in annual net benefits by 2030.

• Urban nature provides substantial economic value, with the global benefits estimated at nine times the costs. By 2030, the annual net benefits from nature across all cities could exceed $2 trillion, though this would require increasing annual investment from approximately $32 billion to an average of $135 billion through 2030.
• Integrating nature into urban environments reduces building energy use and peak electricity demand by providing shade and insulation. In Sacramento, California, planting roughly 630,000 additional trees could lower peak demand by 3 percent (over 100 MW) by 2050, potentially saving more than $150 million in new power generation investments.
• Green and blue infrastructure, such as wetlands and rain gardens, offers a lower-carbon and more cost-effective alternative to conventional 'grey' stormwater infrastructure. For example, if Ahmedabad, India, preserves its existing lakes instead of using grey infrastructure, it could avoid 87 percent of the embodied carbon and save over $320 million in construction and maintenance costs through 2050.
• Urban nature, specifically street trees, can lower transportation emissions by making walking, biking, and public transit more viable. In Curitiba, Brazil, planting trees on 45 under-shaded streets could reduce car usage by an amount equivalent to removing 2,000 cars from the road for one year.

APA

RMI (2022). Blueprints for a Green City. https://rmi.org/resources/blueprints-for-a-green-city/

Chicago

RMI. Blueprints for a Green City. 2022. https://rmi.org/resources/blueprints-for-a-green-city/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Blueprints for a Green City |date=14 November 2022 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/blueprints-for-a-green-city/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2022blueprints, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Blueprints for a Green City}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2022}, month = nov, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/blueprints-for-a-green-city/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }