WHAT DOES AN URBAN FOREST REALLY COST?

By Matt Ross

Decisions on when, where and how urban forests and street trees are established are often made by regulators, planners and developers that need to integrate these decisions within a broader project – e.g. a new development. And these decisions are often not well informed by solid financial information.

A Tree Investment Tool that accurately calculates the cost of urban trees and allows industry, developers and key stakeholders across all levels of government to effectively plan for the implementation of trees in urban landscapes, has just been launched. The tool allows users to demonstrate the costs and benefits of successfully establishing and maintaining tree-based urban green space.

Understanding the true lifecycle cost of trees will lead to better investment decisions, properly costed operational management, greater community confidence and, ultimately, a healthier urban forest. It is also an important step in ensuring that the natural capital (green assets) can be managed using frameworks and approaches typically used for built assets (e.g. buildings). “Managers of urban forests can now speak the language of accountants when considering urban tree investment decisions,” said Jim Binney, a Director of Natural Capital Economics and one of the developers of the tool. The nursery industry is in a unique position to promote the benefits of widespread tree planting to the community and the opportunity to position itself as the supplier of these beneficial trees to the public and private sectors. It also enables investors to understand key decisions relating to tradeoffs between long-term management costs and the size of initial tree stock, or initial management regimes. This will ultimately have implications for the nursery industry and customers better understand the value proposition of better-quality nursery stock.

The costing tool was built to meet the needs of industry with domestic and international stakeholders contributing to the process of developing the tool. This included defining critical steps and costs for successfully establishing a tree in an urban landscape such as supply, planting, maintenance and removal. The tool has been tested against real-world situations and workshop participants have provided feedback on its functionality.

The Tree Investment Tool comes with a detailed instruction manual and is available for use by a range of practitioners including urban forest and parks staff at local government and contractor organisations. Information provided ensures the cost of large-scale planting schemes is not underestimated, the true cost of maintenance is understood and can be factored into budget bids, and the benefits or otherwise of investing in larger or higher quality trees on the total life cycle cost can be known.

The tool can also be used to calculate the level of financial compensation that could apply where an existing tree (or trees) must be cleared.

“We’re already seeing strong interest in the Tree Investment Tool from our key clients as it allows them to mainstream green assets into decision-making” said Dr Dom Blackham from Mosaic Insights, another of the tool developers. This project was funded through the Hort Innovation Nursery Fund using the nursery R&D levy and contributions from the Australian Government. Resource and environmental economic practitioner Jim Binney presented the tool at TREENET 2020.

The tool and manual are available to download and use at horticulture.com.au

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