Blueprints for a Green City

The briefing highlights the economic and environmental value of urban nature—such as forests, street trees, and wetlands—as a tool for climate mitigation and adaptation. It asserts that the global value of urban nature's benefits is nine times its costs and provides specific examples from Sacramento, Ahmedabad, and Curitiba to demonstrate how nature-based solutions can reduce building energy demand, lower the carbon footprint of stormwater management, and decrease transportation emissions. The document concludes by calling for an increase in annual investment in urban nature projects from $32 billion to $135 billion by 2030 to realize an estimated $2 trillion in annual net benefits.

• Urban nature provides significant economic value, with the global benefits estimated at nine times the associated costs. By 2030, the annual net benefits from nature across all cities could exceed $2 trillion, though this would require increasing average annual investment from $32 billion to $135 billion.
• In Sacramento, California, expanding the tree canopy could lower peak electricity demand and avoid expensive infrastructure. Planting approximately 630,000 additional trees could reduce peak demand by 3 percent (over 100 MW) by 2050, potentially saving over $150 million in new power generation investments.
• Using green and blue infrastructure for stormwater management is more cost-effective and less carbon-intensive than conventional 'grey' infrastructure. In Ahmedabad, India, preserving existing lakes instead of using grey infrastructure could avoid 87 percent of the embodied carbon and save over $320 million in construction and maintenance costs through 2050.
• Urban nature can reduce transportation emissions by making active 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} }