500,000 trees and Counting: How urban tree planting is cooling cities and connecting communities

As you might know, we have just planted our 500,000th tree which has been a massive milestone for us. We planted our sapling at Windinglake in the iconic Glastonbury festival, which was such a full circle moment for us as Sapling started as a tree planting festival in the Scottish Highlands back in 2016. Nowadays, we plant trees all over the world from mangroves in Kenya, to olive groves in Italy, to right here in London where Sapling is based. Today, we’re going to chat about the importance and interest in planting trees in urban spaces for a plethora of reasons from increasing biodiversity to managing surface temperatures. 

One of the things we’re super proud of at Sapling are our tree planting parties, where we take our tree-mendous trade partners and customers out to get involved in tree planting, hands on, accompanied with a few climate positive tipples. Previously, we’ve planted in other major cities within the UK alongside London such as Manchester and Bristol. We work with charities such as Trees For Cities for these parties who, 

‘get stuck in with local communities to cultivate lasting change in their neighbourhoods – whether it’s revitalising forgotten spaces, creating healthier environments or getting people excited about growing, foraging and eating healthy food.’

Now let’s get into the reasons why we’re doing all of this. Heat mitigation within cities is increasingly important as research is going into how trees can be used to decrease surface temperatures amidst urban heatwaves. Research has shown that trees are most effective over asphalt surfaces within urban spaces, however green surfaces benefit from tree shading as well. Charities such as the Woodland trust have created visual representations of tree shading and its effect on surface temperatures, with tree shaded areas being over 10 degrees cooler than unshaded in their Cardiff case study. Now, you might be thinking how are trees doing all this? Well, it all comes mainly from shading but also transpiration, ‘which is when water within the tree is released as water vapour through their leaves. This process takes heat energy from the surrounding environment for evaporation, lowering the surrounding temperature.’. Alongside this, ‘trees can reduce air pollution [and] quiet noise’, with statistics showing that when planted effectively and close to sources of pollution, trees can act as barriers and reduce pollution concentration ‘by a factor of two or more’. 

This is exactly the thinking behind the exciting news that Clapham Common will soon see 280 new trees planted. With the recent heatwave in London, they announced in an Instagram post that the aim of this project is to, ‘future-proof the Common with more shade, more biodiversity, and a better balance between events, nature and everyday use.’. 

At Sapling, our mission has always been rooted (quite literally) in using tree planting as a force for positive environmental and social change. From our very first tree at our festival in the Highlands to our 500,000th at Glastonbury, we’ve seen how trees can connect people, protect the planet, and transform urban landscapes. As always, we hope you found this informative and interesting! 

Kind Tree-gards,

The Sapling Team x