An international team of researchers has released a free planning tool designed to help city councils and community groups make decisions about urban trees in ways that go beyond carbon storage and visual appeal, according to a report published in the peer-reviewed journal npj Urban Sustainability.
The tool, called Tree Value Visions, was developed with residents, policymakers, and tree officers in Cardiff, Milton Keynes, Edinburgh, York, and Camden. It was built alongside academics and includes a free online training course available through The Open University, as reported by Phys.org.
Urban trees are increasingly recognized for their role in cooling cities, supporting biodiversity, and improving health. The UK government has set a target of planting 30,000 hectares of trees per year as part of its climate and biodiversity commitments. Meeting that target requires local authorities to engage communities, but many councils have limited budgets and resources for that kind of participation.
The researchers behind Tree Value Visions say current planning decisions tend to focus on what can be easily measured. Their study found that spending and planning choices often center on carbon storage or visual impact, giving less attention to the deeper connections people have with trees and green spaces in their neighborhoods.
The tool addresses this through four future visions of urban treescapes. Each vision frames trees differently: as something that defines a place, as a set of resources, as part of ecological systems, and as part of shared communities between people and trees. Planners and residents can use these frameworks to have broader conversations about what trees mean to the people who live near them.
Project lead Professor Jasper Kenter, a research fellow in deliberative ecological economics at Aberystwyth Business School, described why that broader conversation matters. "Urban treescapes are not just environmental systems, they are places where people live their lives, form memories and build relationships. They shape how communities experience their neighborhoods, from everyday travel and leisure to longer-term connections with nature and place."
Kenter also explained what the tool is designed to do in practice. "Our new tool helps bring those experiences into decision-making, alongside environmental and economic considerations. It is designed to support more inclusive discussions about the future of urban trees and to encourage communities and policy makers to think about how we live from, in, with, and are part of, nature in cities."
The researchers said the tool is designed specifically for local authorities working with limited resources. By providing a ready-to-use framework, it allows councils to run meaningful community engagement without building a process from scratch. The tool also encourages planners to connect tree decisions to broader policy areas including housing, transport, and climate resilience.
The tool is free to use and the accompanying Open University training course is available now. The study behind it involved testing across five UK cities, making it one of the more geographically broad assessments of community engagement in urban tree planning published in recent years.
