Helping a decarbonized society
Cutting food miles, storing carbon and greening for the climate
Through local consumption that cuts transport, composting that cycles organic matter, and greening that stores carbon, farms are small but real sites of decarbonization and climate action.
345 related cases
Cases where this shows up
Ogo Bamboo Project, Ogo-cho, Kita Ward, Kobe
JPKobe (北区), Japan
A community group based in Ogo-cho, Kita Ward, Kobe, that since 2019 has been clearing neglected bamboo groves and putting the bamboo to use. Left alone, bamboo encroaches on fields, degrades the landscape and shelters crop-raiding animals, so continuous cutting is needed to return the hills to open, managed satoyama. Under the motto "tasty and fun", bamboo and shoots are upcycled instead of discarded — into domestic menma, bamboo craft and the transmission of those skills, and fertiliser made from bamboo chips. Its bamboo-chip compost is used in the Kobe Compost Project's public workshops.
compost.smartkobe-portal.com+3
AGRUPAR – Quito Participatory Urban Agriculture
ECQuito, Ecuador
A participatory urban agriculture program run since 2002 by the city of Quito through its economic development agency CONQUITO, promoting agroecology-based self-production of food and advancing social, climate and gender justice.
conquito.org.ec+3
Oota From Your Thota / Garden City Farmers
INBengaluru, India
A Bengaluru organic terrace-gardening movement begun in 2011 that runs recurring events to spread rooftop food growing among urban dwellers. It brings seeds, saplings, compost, tools and know-how together in one place with demonstrations and consultations.
gardencityfarmers.org+2
Thammasat University Urban Rooftop Farm (TURF)
THPathum Thani, Thailand
A rooftop farm inspired by traditional rice terraces that produces about 20 tons of organic food a year, equivalent to some 80,000 campus meals. Its 12 sloped areas act as outdoor classrooms, making it a learning hub where 40,000 students and nearby residents can study sustainable agriculture.
sdgs.tu.ac.th+2
Biohuerto Ayllu 21 (Villa El Salvador, Lima)
PELima, Peru
In an arid peripheral district of Lima, older women turned wasteland into a 1,400 m² agroecological garden. A resident-led response to food insecurity and the climate crisis, it puts urban agriculture at the heart of neighbourhood food and social life.
es.wikipedia.org+2
Fambidzanai Permaculture Centre
ZWHarare, Zimbabwe
A pioneering centre on the outskirts of Harare that has taught permaculture and organic farming for over three decades. Credited with influencing nearly every related project in Zimbabwe, from urban and peri-urban gardens to rural farms, it trains practitioners of climate-resilient agriculture around the capital.
fambidzanai.org.zw+2
Supporting research
Analisis pengurangan emisi karbon melalui inovasi perancangan rooftop garden di lingkungan perkotaan
Reducing carbon emissions is a critical task in addressing global climate change, and establishing rooftop gardens in urban areas is presented as one approach that could be adopted. This paper is a literature review examining the environmental advantages of rooftop gardens, with particular focus on their capacity to mitigate carbon emissions. It reviewed diverse sources concerning rooftop garden implementation for carbon mitigation. The review states that rooftop gardens possess significant capacity to mitigate carbon emissions and address the challenges posed by climate change, though successful installation requires careful planning and a thorough understanding of environmental and technological aspects. Rooftop gardens are described as enhancing CO2 absorption, lowering surface temperatures, and decreasing building energy needs by improving thermal insulation, as well as contributing to improved air quality and urban biodiversity. The review identified numerous designs and best practices that could optimize the ecological and economic advantages of rooftop gardens, and points to the possibility of incorporating them into urban planning as an approach to addressing climate change and enhancing urban quality of life.
Putri Balqis, Riski Wulandari, Muhammad Zulfandi · 2024 · Jurnal Teknologi Cerdas
Beyond yield: integrating energy, water, cost, and carbon to benchmark indoor vertical farming viability
Filling a gap left by studies that assessed vertical-farming energy use and cost-effectiveness with simplified models, this paper isolates how individual input parameters drive efficiency, sustainability and economic viability using a detailed modelling framework with sensitivity and correlation analyses. It evaluates 162 scenarios combining three levels of temperature, photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) and CO2 concentration across the socio-environmentally distinct Trondheim, Shanghai and Dubai regions, at two insulation thicknesses. Because of HVAC and dehumidification, crop productivity stays optimal regardless of insulation or external climate. PPFD dominates growth (correlation 0.85), ahead of CO2 (0.36) and temperature (0.22), and also drives energy consumption (0.73). Lowest specific energy consumption coincides with lowest productivity (55 kg/m2), and the cheapest levelized cost of lettuce came at 24 degC, 250 umol/m2s PPFD, 1400 ppm CO2 with insulation (102 kg/m2). Only decarbonised energy systems can support vertical farming without raising CO2 emissions relative to imported lettuce.
Ceccanti F., Bischi A., Desideri U. et al. · 2026 · Energy Conversion and Management
Environmental and Social Dynamics of Urban Rooftop Agriculture (URTA) and Their Impacts on Microclimate Change
Compares an experimental agricultural rooftop with bare roofs, measuring microclimate parameters including air, surface, and indoor temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide. It shows that rooftop agriculture can mitigate urban microclimate change and supply fresh vegetables while delivering environmental and socioeconomic benefits to city dwellers.
Begum M.S., Bala S.K., Islam A.K.M.S. et al. · 2021 · Sustainability (MDPI), 13(16):9053
Comparing controlled-environment-urban agriculture to conventional agriculture across Canada
A life-cycle assessment of controlled-environment urban lettuce found climate-change impacts ranging from 0.8 to 25 times those of conventional lettuce because of high energy demand; in carbon-intensive grids such as Alberta, per-kilogram emissions exceeded conventional agriculture.
· 2026 · Agronomy for Sustainable Development