Creating tiny forests for urban climate adaptation

Urban areas are increasingly vulnerable to climate-related impacts - from heatwaves and poor air quality to limited access to green spaces, which in turn accelerates biodiversity loss.

Topic Biochar, Sustainability

Type A Healthier Earth

Date 23/09/2025

Author A Healthier Earth

Read Time 3 minutes

Helping local communities address challenges like these is central to our work to redefine responsible digital infrastructure. That’s why we take a geo-specific approach to developing solutions tailored to the needs of each community we’re in.

In London, our data centre is located in a densely built urban area with limited access to nature-rich spaces. Applying our geo-specific strategy, we sought to build a solution with local partners that would bring meaningful environmental and social benefits to the local community.

Three Tiny Forests in North London

In partnership with Barnet Council and Earthwatch Europe, we’ve created three new ‘Tiny Forests’ in East Finchley. Each woodland, roughly the size of a tennis court, was planted with over 1,800 saplings by volunteers from Pure DC and the local community. A third of the saplings planted were grown in the vertical farm at our ForestFactory® at Blenheim Palace, so we can compare their growth to standard nursery-grown trees.

1,800

Saplings planted by volunteers from Pure DC

The three plots will provide nature-rich spaces which connect to an existing Tiny Forest and urban wildflower meadow, helping enhance biodiversity, improve air quality and give local residents access to nature. The saplings are also planted using biochar as a soil additive, which improves soil health and is found to help saplings grow faster.

The Tiny Forests are part of Earthwatch’s Nature in Cities programme which aims to create greener, healthier cities and improve access to nature-rich spaces in urban areas. The green sites will also serve as a living laboratory for local citizen scientists, coordinated by Earthwatch, to harvest data and investigate techniques to promote faster tree growth. Each plot uses a slightly different planting system to improve understanding of soil condition, carbon sequestrations and drainage. This includes one of the plots using a ‘no-dig’ approach, which is a more progressive way of re-foresting where soil isn’t disturbed. The soil and growth of saplings in this plot will be monitored and compared to the others that used a more traditional approach.

The ‘Tiny Forest’ model is based on the Miyawaki method, which encourages dense planting of native species to accelerate forest growth and ecological benefits. It’s a proven approach that delivers rapid results, making it ideal for urban environments where space is limited and impact needs to be swift. By adopting the model, we’re using our geo-specific approach to bring nature into the heart of the city, helping parts of London to adapt to a rapidly changing climate while creating spaces that local people can enjoy and learn from.