Bezos Pledges $50 Million a Year for Urban Greenery, With a Focus on Communities of Color
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summer in chicago. Danielle Sheikholeslami/shutterstock
For most of the last 30 years, government spending for urban greenery has barely budged, at least within the USDA. Farm Bill support for urban and community forestry hovered around the same level for most of that stretch, according to a history from Penn State, including last year, when $36 million was allocated for a program within the U.S. Forest Service.
But the $1 trillion Infrastructure and Jobs Act, passed in 2021, was the first sign of a new era. It contained $100 million for a new Federal Highway Administration program called Healthy Streets, which issues grants to governments and nonprofits to address flood risks, air quality and urban heat islands.
Then came the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the largest climate bill in U.S. history, which assigned $1.5 billion over 10 years to the Forest Service for grants to tribal nations, nonprofits, states and cities to expand urban green space in disadvantaged areas.
This week, philanthropy joined the long-overdue funding correction.
The Bezos Earth Fund announced Monday it will spend $400 million through 2030 to plant trees and expand green spaces in underserved urban U.S. communities, including $50 million already sent to groups working in five cities — Albuquerque, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and Wilmington, Delaware.
Called “Greening America’s Cities,” the commitment by the philanthropy of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his fiancée, former news anchor Lauren Sanchez, is notable not just for its size, but for its community-centered approach at a time when many new billionaire donors are sending the bulk of their climate checks to technological efforts and the world’s largest environmental organizations. (CNN reported in May that the couple are engaged but they have not confirmed the news.)
"Access to nature is deeply unequal, and the importance of green spaces to underserved communities is often overlooked and unaddressed," said Sánchez, vice chair of the Bezos Earth Fund, in a press release. “This $400 million commitment will impact communities across the country, making a tangible difference people can see.”
About three-quarters of the grants in each region went to local nonprofits, a list including groups like Gangstas to Growers in Atlanta, Blacks in Green on Chicago’s South Side, and the L.A.-based TreePeople. The funding will largely pay for community organizations like those to plant trees, create walking trails and restore land for farming, among other efforts to add green spaces.
As a walk through a low-income neighborhood during a heat wave makes clear, studies have found that such zones can be 6 to 10 degrees hotter than the rest of a city. Trees and green space cool such environments, improve childrens’ health and make residents happier. Data consistently show a wide gap in access to nature for people of color. This new program not only addresses these disparities, it also represents climate grantmaking that looks beyond the simple bottom line of greenhouse gas emissions.
“It's a very good deal in terms of value for money, when you take all of the effects. You wouldn’t do this just for carbon sequestration, there are much better ways to sequester a ton of carbon,” said Andrew Steer, president of the Bezos Earth Fund. “But when you look at all the different benefits, they add up something quite remarkable.”
A few years ago, tree planting saw a surge in popularity as wealthy and corporate donors embraced it as a simple, feel good climate solution. Then came the backlash, as critics flagged such investments as overpromising their carbon removal potential and failing to challenge our reliance on fossil fuels. Even so, greening urban areas is undeniably a critical climate resilience strategy, and when done right, can advance climate justice.
Beyond local groups, the Bezos awards also went to regional and national Black- and Latinx-led groups like PolicyLink, Partnership for Southern Equity, and GreenLatinos. Well-known national organizations, like National Wildlife Federation and the Trust for Public Land, as well as top universities, including UCLA and University of Southern California, also received support, but at much lower levels.
The effort also pulled in an impressive array of political partners in a bid to create lasting support for the proposed changes. The fund consulted with senators and members of Congress, but also mayors and state representatives. White House Senior Advisor John Podesta even came for the opening ceremony.
With roughly $50 million due to go out each year, with exact amounts varying annually, the new program is also the latest example of the transformative power billionaire donors hold in American society, and particularly its cities. Over the next eight years, Bezos will be spending millions more than the federal government spent annually over the previous three decades, up until the recent federal legislation.
At the same time, let’s not forget that this game-changing amount for millions of city residents around the country barely puts a dent in the enormous private fortune of someone like Jeff Bezos. The full multi-year commitment is less than the amateur astronaut reportedly paid for his new yacht.
“We want to do things”
How do you choose which five cities to green in a country of 330 million people? Steer says it was “part science and part judgment.” The project began with consultations with more than 50 specialists, both at the national and city level. And there will be more cities added to the list in the coming months and years.
The initial locations are lower-income and, unsurprisingly, have low levels of tree cover and green space per capita, according to Steer. Residents are predominantly African American, Latinx, Indigenous and other people of color. It’s the latest example of Bezos becoming a surprisingly strong ally to the climate justice community.
Earlier iterations of the program had more funding for national groups, Steer said. “We had more funds for, if you like, policy and mood music and data,” he joked. But internal discussions, including with their two board members, led to a shift in focus.
“Jeff and Lauren… they basically say, ‘Look, you know, we believe in building and putting things on the front line,’” said Steer. “‘Yes, policy matters a lot and yes, capacity building, totally. But at the end of the day, we want to do things.’”
Cecilia Martinez, chief of environmental and climate justice — who took over for Danielle Deane-Ryan, the former director of equitable climate solutions — also helped guide the process, according to Steer. “Cecilia absolutely lives and breathes local ownership, and [has] a deep, deep sense of moral justice,” he said.
The projects mix physical improvements with classic philanthropic goals. For instance, TreePeople received $1.9 million from the fund to plant and maintain more than 4,000 trees in Los Angeles, as well as for state and local policy work, multilingual organizing and youth programs.
“Bezos Earth Fund’s support will be transformational in helping provide crucial shade to a city and globe currently experiencing record heat and extreme climate events,” said CEO Cindy Montañez in a press release. “This is a critical step toward transformative change, holistically advancing both the greening of urban neighborhoods and the lives of those who live there.”
Perspectives from philanthropy, government
The U.S. history of segregation, redlining and racialized land-use policies have left many marginalized communities around the country hotter, more polluted and less climate resilient than other neighborhoods, noted Pat Smith, president and CEO of The Funders Network, who praised the fund’s community approach.
“Putting resources into the hands of grassroots organizations supports effective, community-led climate solutions and strengthens the ability for those people most impacted to push for environmental justice and systemic change,” she said in an emailed statement.
She highlighted the choice of Atlanta, and the immense potential in the American South, which has long received a paltry share of philanthropic dollars.
“Philanthropic investments can play a critical role in helping these communities develop a green workforce and a leadership pipeline of environmental advocates that can drive change now and for generations to come,” she added.
For Beattra Wilson, assistant director of the Urban and Community Forestry Program at USDA, the entry of Bezos is a welcome complement to her work, particularly to the federal government’s commitment that 40% of benefits of such investments will support disadvantaged communities, known as Justice40. With funding from IRA, her program will be awarding up to $1 billion in grants to expand equitable access to trees and green spaces within cities.
“As a Justice40 program, it is inspiring to see philanthropic efforts that will expand tree canopy to nature deprived and disadvantaged communities,” she said in an emailed statement. “By investing in our urban forests, we invest in the health and wellness of everyone living in those neighborhoods for generations to come.”
‘A very good deal’
For those who need it, there are reams of data backing the value of city greenery. But you could also simply try walking down a hot sidewalk on a treeless street bracketed by buildings radiating hot air — not to mention doing that during the heat waves of last few weeks.
A record-breaking stretch of temperatures means more humans than ever are feeling the full weight of that reality. In the U.S., where roughly 4 in 5 residents live in cities, few can escape it.
It’s a relief, if overdue, to see both the government and philanthropy starting to put real money toward ensuring nature is not just something to go see in a park, but an integral part of everyday life in American cities, for reasons including health, climate resilience, happiness and carbon sequestration. Let’s hope more get on board. After all, it’s only going to get hotter.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled John Podesta's name.
