The Greening our City grant program supports local councils across Greater Sydney to enhance urban tree canopy and green cover in our local parks, streets and neighbourhoods. More trees mean more shade, cooler suburbs and attractive places to live and work for our communities.
Each tree planted contributes to the department’s commitment to plant five million trees across Greater Sydney by 2030, and to achieving the Greater Sydney Region Plan’s 40% canopy cover target by 2036.
Program objectives
- enhance Greater Sydney’s urban tree canopy and green cover, particularly in areas with low canopy cover, have higher exposure to urban heat island effect and are more vulnerable to the adverse impacts of urban heat
- help prepare for climate extremes and mitigate the urban heat island effect through tree planting and other green cover initiatives to cool urban areas and provide shade
- promote partnership projects between local and state governments, organisations, industry, the private sector and the community
- support projects that demonstrate a commitment to canopy expansion, including improved outcomes for health, resilience and climate adaptation.
2022 Greening our City grant
More than $9.9 million has been awarded to 21 projects in 17 Councils under the 2022 grant round to fund new urban greening projects within the Greater Sydney Region.
This funding will support local councils to undertake priority tree planting and greening projects in their local government area, with a focus on cooling and greening streets, parks, active transport routes and aligning with outcomes being delivered through the Greener Neighbourhoods Program.
Previous grant rounds
Since 2019, the grant program has funded the delivery of 131 tree planting and demonstrations projects across four grant rounds. These projects will result in over 107,000 new trees planted in areas where they are most needed, creating greener, shadier and more attractive suburbs across Sydney.
In June 2022, additional funding of $700,000 was made available to councils across Greater Sydney to help remedy the impacts that recent storms and floods has had on tree-planting efforts.
2021 Greening our City grant
The third round of grant funding has awarded more than $9.9 million to 28 projects in 23 councils across Greater Sydney.
2020 Greening our City grant
The second round of grant funding awarded $10.2 million to 50 projects in Greater Sydney.
2019 Five Million Trees grant
This first round of grant funding awarded over $5.3 million to 32 projects across 20 councils in Greater Sydney.
Greener Neighbourhoods grant program 2021-2022
Up to $1.65 million was made available to all 33 Greater Sydney councils through a non-competitive grant program. Each council was able to apply for up to $50,000 of funding within the available funding categories: data, policy, community engagement and private land canopy.
Greening our City case studies
- Georges River Casula parklands case study (PDF, 1.5MB)
- Hudson park tree canopy case study (PDF, 1.4MB)
- Fairfield City case study (PDF, 400KB)
- Hawkesbury case study (PDF, 394KB)
- Chameleon Reserve case study (PDF, 460KB)
Map of successful grant projects
You can find more details about the 2021 successful grant projects using the following interactive map.
Note: You can view a larger version of the interactive map.
More information
The grant program is being administered by Local Government NSW on behalf of the department. For enquiries or more information, contact the team via gocgrants@planning.nsw.gov.au.