Despite climate action planning and implementation for over a decade, Canadian cities are struggling to meet their climate targets, while climate change is advancing at double the rate anticipated. Most climate action planning in the recent past has focused on densification, green buildings, renewable energy, and transit. Urban greening has only recently been included in municipal. However, urban greening may conflict with other climate action strategies such as densification. There is currently a poor understanding of relationships between trees and building energy, and trade-offs between adaptation, mitigation, and livability.

This project evaluates where and how much trees can contribute to reduced energy use by buildings and outdoor shading to maintain livability in increasingly dense neighbourhoods. We modelled four different future ‘what-if’ scenarios for increasing tree canopy cover and volume in a densifying 256 hectare area of Vancouver to 2050. Digital proxy models were utilized to spatially visualize and assess both urban form and urban forest changes in 2050. Urban building energy modelling was employed to estimate impacts on building energy use and emissions. We also apply outdoor energy models to assess tree shading effects across the neighbourhood. The scenarios include: 1) maintaining existing municipal urban forestry policies without climate-adapted trees and 2) with climate-adapted trees; 3) strategically planting trees to reduce building energy; 4) maximizing tree planting across the neighbourhood.

View the interactive dashboard here.