Urban Tree Utility

Cities worldwide have been heating up for decades due to the well-documented Heat Island Effect. As green spaces that once absorbed sunlight and converted it to plant energy are replaced by buildings and pavement which store heat during the day and release it at night, average urban temperatures keep rising.

Electricity providers—often regulated or publicly owned—earn most of their revenue from infrastructure maintenance, not electricity sales. Meanwhile, customers who turn on air conditioners, in essence, are buying coolness, not electrons. Because of this inherent demand for coolness, my vision is to create Urban Tree Utility companies that provide “cooling as a service”.

By working with municipalities to allow utilities to profit from maintaining urban forests and other “ecostructure” alongside electrical infrastructure, utilities could deliver the cooling service customers want with less energy use. Communities would benefit from lower electricity demand, cooler temperatures, and lower overall utility bills, while up electrical generating capacity for emerging high-demand sectors like data centers, AI, and cryptocurrency—without building as many new power plants.

Plenty of opportunities are on the horizon to profitably put nature to work in our cities. As transportation shifts toward autonomous vehicles and multimodal systems, large parking lots and garages are losing relevance and can be repurposed. Many cities already have abundant empty tree boxes, underused rooftops suited for natural installations, and growing interest in integrating urban farming into the built environment.

Green spaces have so many ancillary benefits to society, which is why one will always find more trees in the wealthier parts of town. Developing Urban Tree Utility companies would create a financial mechanism that recognizes the real work done by nature to affect the local climate, making these ancillary benefits available to everyone who lives in an urban areas.