In February and in April 2025, in the framework of UP2030 project, Milan’s Learning and Action Alliance (LAA) met to finetune the methodology the City of Milan and Fondazione LINKS have been developing to evaluate the environmental, economic and social benefits of urban green areas, in support of the urban planning and design activities of the municipality.

Milan’s Learning and Action Alliance gathers experts from the academic and research field holding a variety of expertise: agronomy, architecture, urban planning, energy, biodiversity…As participants of the LAA, their role consists in sharing their expertise and insights on how to measure and maximize the ecosystem services provided by urban greenery, offering a technical and critical vision on the methodology.

During the workshops, the participants of the community of practice were able to provide feedback on the methodology, based on the open-source tool InVEST, especially on the type of input data to be used for the analyses and how to improve the approach. This feedback is essential to consolidate the methodology and make sure it can be really uptaken by the municipal staff in the design and assessment of urban transformation projects and plans.

More LAA meetings will be organized during 2025, allowing for further refinement of the methodology developed by Milan and Fondazione LINKS, but also for further peer-learning and community building about Ecosystem Services Assessment and urban greenery.

Stay tuned!