This past June, just as Americans were starting to head outdoors in droves for the summer season, the National Recreation and Park Association welcomed 10 park agencies to the first Sustainability in Practice cohort meeting. The fellowship-style program partners park managers with leaders at community-based organizations so that the two can exchange ideas about meeting the needs of residents while also using parks to cope with the adverse impacts of climate change. This year’s cohort—representing local groups and park agencies across the country—are meeting virtually, bi-weekly until September 18 as they work on creating new master plans for parks that will guide management well into the future. 

The program comes at a time when city planners are starting to recognize that parks can be powerful tools to combat the worst effects of climate change. Examples include providing respite for residents by utilizing trees to offset the effects of urban heat islands and developing weather mitigation like flood breaks. “Parks are a place in almost every community where you have this publicly owned space that can be activated in this way,” says Ayanna Williams, director of community and environmental resilience with the National Recreation and Park Association. “There’s a lot of innovation happening.”

A 2022 survey found that 43 percent of park and recreation agencies operate under a formal plan to promote sustainability—an umbrella term describing practices and infrastructure that ensures green spaces remain viable as populations increase and the climate becomes more erratic. At least 14 percent of the surveyed park and recreation agencies have their own plans—others operate in a jurisdiction. But as extreme weather intensifies, interest in expanding parks’ roles in sustainability—and leveraging them as ways to boost climate resiliency—is growing. 

The National Recreation and Park Association found that most parks were establishing sustainability plans that focused on protecting the natural habitat, reducing landfill waste, and reducing the use of fossil fuel-based carbon energy. Parks today are planting more trees, building shade structures (especially over sports courts), putting up splash pads, creating pollinator gardens, and even providing air quality flags. Most of that push is coming directly from community members, Williams said, and she emphasized that park sustainability efforts need to start there. This is why the Sustainability in Practice program partners agency staff with people who live in their respective communities. “It can bring people together in a way that I don’t think a lot of things can these days,” she says.

One city that has led the way in this regard is Seattle. In 2018, Seattle Parks and Recreation started conversations with community leaders to establish a plan called Seattle 2035. The plan outlines goals and strategies to help the agency serve residents, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, and help restore ecosystems. This year, Seattle is the host city for the Greater and Greener Summer Parks Conference, which is dedicated in part to discussing how parks can respond to the changing climate. 

AP Díaz, superintendent of Seattle Parks and Recreation, says the city’s sustainability efforts have been successful because they engage the community. “That’s one of the key things that I think park agencies can do to be successful in bringing climate resiliency to the forefront,” he said. 

And innovation is indeed happening quickly in Seattle parks. Right now, the city is experimenting with a pilot program that would replace gas-powered maintenance equipment with electric, transition the park system’s vehicle fleet to EVs, and establish a tree canopy that can thrive in a warming world. Díaz says the city is looking at planting new trees native to Oregon and northern California, which have adapted to hotter environments that may very well be the norm for the Seattle region in the coming decades. 

“I think park agencies, in general, have not always been involved in this space, but I think now more than ever, we’re learning that park agencies in cities can have a really positive effect on some of the climate goals that we’re trying to achieve as a city, as a state, as a nation, as a world,” Díaz says. 

According to Brendan Shane, climate director for Trust for Public Land, 15 percent of cities surveyed for the organization’s annual ParkScore dataset said they were already assessing how their parks and greenspaces could be part of climate planning. 

But creating these integrated sustainability plans—where climate resiliency can be woven into the mission of a park to provide outdoor space—isn’t without its challenges. And one of them is a lack of funding and time for community organizations, in particular. Consequently, an important aspect of the National Recreation and Park Association’s Sustainability in Practice program is its scholarship: the association gives $10,000 to each participating community group. Funding is often one of the biggest challenges park agencies face, too, especially when attempting to establish green infrastructure, Williams said. Shane, from the Trust for Public Land, added that planning can also be hard. Think about rebuilding a creek-side path after a flood. Should a city rebuild it to withstand similarly sized floods or rebuild it to withstand larger ones that may come in the future?

Jackie Ostfeld, director of the Sierra Club’s Outdoors For All campaign, stressed that resilient parks can make nature more accessible. She says low-income communities of color are being hit hardest by the impacts of the climate crisis, so work to expand green spaces, improve tree canopies, and install better infrastructure can provide a reprieve for both people and the planet. 

“A few years ago, you would go down a list of [a city’s] climate action, and you wouldn’t see nature or parks or greenspace on the list at all,” Shane says. “It was like EVs and renewables—all critical, important stuff—but I think we’re still needing to build the understanding for folks that a lot of important climate action locally really comes down to how you’re using your parks and your green space.”