Camden to use social value investment to plant more trees in the borough
Camden has become the first council in the UK to enter into a contract that enables businesses bidding for Camden contracts to fund the planting and long-term care of trees across the borough through their social value commitments.
Camden has awarded a contract to Carbon Heroes, a London-based urban nature infrastructure platform, to channel private sector investment into the borough’s trees. Suppliers bidding for Camden contracts can fund the planting, aftercare and welfare of trees across the borough as part of their social value commitments.
Through our Climate Action Plan, we have set out a comprehensive framework for how we can work together with our partners and communities to reduce emissions, build the borough’s climate resilience at the same time as to improve the day-to-day lives of all our residents.
By working with Carbon Heroes, we are aligning the social value commitments suppliers make in our procurement with these priorities. This will result is more trees being planted, and lasting benefits for residents — at no extra cost.
Suppliers bidding on Camden contracts can choose to use Carbon Heroes to design a nature-based social value strategy for the borough — choosing from new tree planting, young tree aftercare and mature tree welfare.
Carbon Heroes then quantifies the social, environmental and economic value of every commitment in pounds, with Camden planting and maintaining the trees. Every tree is logged in a registry with species, location, planting date, condition and social value contribution.
Councillor Slater continued:
“We know that trees are vital, helping make the urban environment more liveable and providing part of our response to the climate emergency.
“Our tree planting strategy sets out how we are increasing the tree canopy cover in Camden, maintaining species diversity, and ensuring a healthy population of trees.
“This additional funding will help us to reach our aim to increase the canopy cover in the borough to over 26% by 2045.”
Between 2017 and 2023:
- The number of trees in Camden increased from 25,890 to 28,461.
- The total carbon storage increased from 10,800 tonnes to 13,600 tonnes.
- The annual carbon sequestration (the net amount of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere by biomass within a single calendar year through photosynthesis) increased from 207 tonnes/yr to 231 tonnes/yr.