Inculcating ​a ​sense ​of ​stewardship ​and ​responsibility ​towards urban ​​trees ​amongst ​citizens

Using i-tree technology as a means to facilitate active participation of local communities in urban forestry

Master thesis (2022)

Authors

D. Ramchandani Industrial Design Engineering

Contributors

R.A. Price Responsible Marketing and Consumer Behavior (mentor)
J. van Erp Design Aesthetics - IDE (graduation committee member)
J.R.T. van der Velde Landscape Architecture - Architecture and the Built Environment (coach)
Faculty
Industrial Design Engineering, Industrial Design Engineering
Copyright: © 2022 Deeksha Ramchandani
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Published Date

14-02-2022

Language

English

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Faculty

Industrial Design Engineering

Abstract

Cities are in an urgent need to adapt to the impacts of climate change, particularly, high temperatures and heat stress. Urban Forests are the most effective means of climate adaptation. However, the multiple benefits of urban trees are highly undervalued in the urban contexts. This project focuses on positioning urban trees as effective agents in improving the overall liveability of cities. The premise of the project lies in the fuzzy front end of the innovation process where the i-Tree technology is being redeveloped for its effective adoption in Netherlands. The goal of the project is to synchronize the technical potential of i-Tree as a tool and communicate the benefits of trees to multiple stakeholders in the process.

The overall design direction aims to address these problems through a series of interventions across the system of urban forestry. The concept introduces a public awareness campaign to bridge the knowledge gap between citizens and other stakeholders. The campaign is proposed to stretch over a duration of 10-11 months with several touchpoints along the way for citizens to get enthusiastic about the idea of maintaining and taking care of urban trees. The touchpoints aim to target events like Dutch Design week, Boomfeestdag (Tree Festival) and Springsnow festival. To make the awareness program desirable and interesting. A podcast series and a guide is developed called “How to befriend a Tree?”. A concept for the i-Tree Eco tool is proposed which communicates tree benefits in a way that is comprehensible by all the citizens. All the touch points lead the audience of the campaign to the digital platform of i-Tree Netherlands which helps people become caretakers of trees easily.