The Urban Cooling Toolbox

Urban Cooling Toolbox
Many cities are already feeling the effects of climate change, such as increased heat, droughts, storms, and floods, which are expected to worsen even if we limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C. Higher temperatures pose higher risks and could lead to catastrophic consequences. Adapting to climate change is more beneficial socially and economically than dealing with the costs of disasters.

With this in mind the C40 Knowledge Hub launched in October 2019 to provide city planners, officials and other interested parties with a reliable source for information about the planning and implementation of urban climate action.

As part of their work they have put together the “Urban Cooling Toolbox”, a comprehensive collection of proven strategies to;

“lower urban temperatures and reduce the impact of the urban heat island effect, to inform cities’ actions to adapt to extreme heat as part of climate action planning.”

In the Urban Cooling Toolbox they outline six areas, together with guidance and real world examples, that are key for urban cooling:

  • Green infrastructure, such as trees, green roofs, green corridors and permeable pavements.
  • Blue infrastructure, including drinking fountains, water cooling, public swimming pools, fountains and water bodies.
  • Grey infrastructure, such as cool roofs, façade shading, solar window film, cool pavements, and passive cooling in buildings.
  • Communications and outreach, including cooling centres, outreach and communications campaigns.
  • Policy, which includes climate design guidelines, heat emergency response plan, cooling tax rebate programmes and cool/green roof regulations.
  • Urban development, such as urban geometry and building materials.
urban cooling table of contents
C40
Urban Cooling Toolkit Green Corridors card
C40

The full resource, which is over 50 pages long and filled with dozens of examples, is available from the C40 Knowledge hub here.

For information on our Urban Greening Services click here

Please contact us if you have a project or installation you would like to talk to us about. We are always happy to discuss your plans with you without obligation.