- Economic Growth and Investment
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The creation and development of green space and landscaping can encourage and attract high value industry to a region creating employment opportunities. This in turn leads to improvements in quality of life and improves GVA within local economies.
- Land and Property Values
Developing green space and undertaking environmental improvements in key locations within urban and semi-urban areas has significant benefits for housing and land values. Proximity to high quality and accessible greenspace has a positive impact on house prices.
- Labour Productivity
High quality accessible Green Infrastructure can provide opportunities to develop a more productive workforce for employers through improved health, stress alleviation, and enhancing motivation and retaining motivated people.
- Tourism
Green Infrastructure plays a strong role in the generation of new tourism opportunities, as well as stimulating economic activity within agriculture, forestry and public services. By investing in key environmental assets, or creating new assets and greening city centres you attract new visitors, which in turn supports the urban retail and tourism sectors.
- Products from the Land
The vast majority of the existing Green Infrastructure takes the form of land in production on the countryside: agricultural, horticultural, managed woodland, managed moorland. Increased benefits may be realised through investment targeted at diversification activities, creating added value from land-based products, including renewable energy resources.
- Health and Wellbeing
Increased Green Infrastructure provides multiple health benefits, through improved air quality, reduced stress levels, increased opportunities for physical activity and recreation, which contributes to a reduction of long term illness and cost to the health services.
- Recreation and Leisure
Green Infrastructure generates new leisure and recreational opportunities, stimulating investment in rights of ways and publicly accessible greenspace and woodlands. It encourages community involvement in neighbourhood projects and can encourage cohesion and develop a renewed sense of local identity.
- Quality of Place
Green Infrastructure improves living environments, providing opportunities for recreation, empowerment through community action and ownership. It makes neighbourhoods more attractive improving property prices, investment, employment opportunities and social capital.
- Land and Biodiversity
Green Infrastructure plays a strong role in supporting direct and indirect employment in agriculture, forestry, land-management and conservation industries. The potential to create green spaces within built-up areas reconnects urban communities with the land and improve opportunities for local food marketing.
- Flood Alleviation and Water Management
Increasing and maintaining canopy cover, green space and soft surfacing reduces and controls run-off, improves absorption rates and provides storage capacity, resulting in less dramatic flood events for urban areas, reducing costs to business and residents.
- Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation
Green Infrastructure provides natural air conditioning for urban areas, reducing the need for power consumption for heating and cooling, alongside its contribution towards greenhouse gas absorption and longer-term benefits in managing the impact of climate change.
