Making Industrial Areas Greener

Seattle is a major manufacturing center and trade destination, and these activities are housed in industrial areas. These areas have a lot of concrete and machines that increase temperatures, worsen air quality, and create challenges for community health and well-being. The City of Seattle is working to increase tree canopy cover in industrial areas to provide cooling, clean air and water, and opportunities for environmental connection.  

Industrial areas have the lowest tree canopy cover in the city. These areas have unique challenges to planting trees, including limited space, poor soil, high heat, and difficult growing conditions. We’re working across City departments and with community partners to plant trees, create and improve spaces for trees, and add more greenery. 

In places without ground to plant, we use Grattix boxes, large tree filled planters, that serve as raingardens by filtering building runoff and providing greenery.

How it Works 

We partner with two community organizations, Dirt Corps and ECOSS, to connect with businesses and remove pavement, install green walls, plant trees and plants, and install rain gardens on industrial and commercial properties. These projects often involve working with construction and design companies in the neighborhood.

Businesses care for and maintain these projects on their properties over the long term, and our partners work with community members and young people in the community to maintain projects on public land. These partnerships also provide participants in the community with skill building and job training.  

Focus Neighborhoods: South Park and Georgetown

Communities in the South Park and Georgetown neighborhoods of the Duwamish Valley have high rates of health disparities due to poor air quality, extreme weather heat, sea-level rise and flooding, and more. The Duwamish Valley also has some of the lowest tree canopy coverage in the city.

Making these neighborhoods greener requires a unique approach tailored to the industrial landscapes that are also home to people, jobs, and businesses. We partner with Seattle’s Duwamish Valley Program to ensure this work is responsive to community​ needs and goals. As we grow the program, we're prioritizing expansion in other industrial areas and hard-to-plant places across Seattle. Learn more about our other programs helping to expand tree canopy in neighborhoods with fewer trees on our Foresting Seattle website. 

Our work together in the Duwamish Valley since 2023:

• Installed more than 225 trees, 10,000+ plants, 70+ rain gardens, cisterns, and planter boxes with trees and plants.  
• Removed paved surfaces and added soil to nearly 2 acres of land across the Duwamish Valley in locations most in need of greenery – about one and a half football fields. 
• Created formal agreements and partnerships with more than two dozen businesses for long-term care of trees and landscapes. 

Rain gardens are planted areas that collect polluted runoff. Cisterns are containers that collect water and reduce pollution and flooding potential.  

This work is funded by the City of Seattle and the King County Flood Control District, Seattle Parks Foundation, Rose Foundation, and One Roof Foundation.