Abstract Manager

The City of Edmonton is delivering on the commitment made in 2021's City Plan to be "Greener as we Grow" which involves driving climate resilience ahead and strengthening our natural systems. As a major municipality that has recently grown to over one million people, the City Plan maps out what growth will look like as the population doubles and the targets and measures that will be used to ensure development does not come at the expense of sustainability.

The City of Edmonton has committed to planting two million trees and shrubs over the next eight years through a combination of open space and boulevard tree planting, as well as planting native species in naturalized areas. The target is part of the City's Plan's goal of achieving 20 percent canopy cover by 2071. The last measurement of Edmonton's urban forest canopy was 13 percent in 2019.

To achieve this ambitious goal, the City of Edmonton has partnered with the Federal Government and has received the largest grant funding in Canada under the Natural Resources Canada 2 Billion Trees (2BT) program.

This session will include the strategies and tools around where naturalization and maintained tree planting will occur and will be an opportunity for other municipalities, big and small, to learn how to put their climate change goals into action by being greener as they grow.