Nashville's natural environment includes its air, water bodies and watersheds, plants and animals, and forests and green spaces, and the vital services these components of our ecosystem provide to support daily life. Stewardship of our environment means preserving and protecting these naturally occurring assets, and ensuring responsible use of our finite resources. Environmental stewardship is a key part of sustainability, and it is important that we recognize those parts of our environment that we cannot recreate after they're gone.
On this page, find out about some of Metro's primary environmental stewardship initiatives, including protecting and expanding the city's tree cover, building out its network of recreational trails and greenways, protecting its waterways and watersheds, and reducing the amount of waste the city's residents contribute to area landfills.
Metro's environmental stewardship goals are informed by a number of plans, including:
NashvilleNext: The city's Comprehensive Plan guiding us to 2040
Plan to Play: Metro's countywide Parks and Greenways Master Plan
Climate Action Plan: Metro's plans for decarbonization
See how Nashville is progressing as it works towards its environmental stewardship goals: Access Metro's Environmental Dashboard
Major Initiatives
Investing in our Tree Canopy
Legislation directs that trees on public property should be managed as an asset, with regular progress reports, and designates a review panel to consider all large-scale removal of trees on Metro property and oversee robust replacement standards (20% more trees than similar private projects).
Metro has also created a dedicated revenue stream to support tree canopy restoration and maintenance on private properties, setting aside a percentage-equivalent of proceeds from Metro building permits, grading permits, and bond-funded construction revenues for the purpose of fully funding the Root Nashville campaign to plant 500,000 trees by 2050.
Parks and Greenways
A strategic master plan for Metro parks and greenways was adopted in 2017 and provides a ten-year vision to sustainably meet Nashville's needs for park land, greenways, community centers, and sports facilities. Goals and recommendations fall under the categories of: Land, Facilities, Programs, Operations, and Funding the Future. Metro Parks recently received funding to perform an update to this plan.