202020 Vision Launches National Plan to Reach its Goal:

The 202020 Vision, an initiative of the Nursery & Garden Industry of Australia (NGIA), was named after its mission: “To create 20% more green space in our urban areas by 2020.”

Launched in 2013, the initiative has worked tirelessly to collate the knowledge of, “500 greening experts from across business, government, academia and the community sector consulted during the initiative’s Growing The Seeds tour into a document that showcases proven, scalable and replicable solutions to greening the urban landscape.” This document was officially launched last month as The 202020 Plan.

Dr Anthony Kachenko, Research and Development Team Leader and Portfolio Manager at Horticulture Innovation Australia said, “The 202020 Plan shows if you get industry and government leaders together to share their collective wisdom they can create simple, impactful pathways to reversing the urban greening crisis – it truly is collaborative impact at its best. Through the plan we now have the start of a compendium of urban greening strategies that is a must-read for every business, level of government and community group in Australia that is playing a role to see our cities become healthy, productive, thriving places that can mitigate the effects of climate change.”

The City of Melbourne’s Urban Forest Strategy is one of the initiative’s most successful projects, and will see the council increase canopy cover from 22 per cent to 40 per cent by 2040. Next on the agenda is a “White Label Urban Forest Strategy” for other local governments, providing a template enabling them to replicate The City of Melbourne’s success.

Collectively, governments, business, and planners are beginning to understand the need to green urban environments. The 202020 Vision, “Australia’s biggest network of green space experts, creators and supporters…is uniquely placed to pioneer a more efficient approach.”

The 202020 Plan is available for download here.