PlanIT Geo and HUGSI Husqvarna

Announcing Our 2021 Partnership

Since 2012, PlanIT Geo has been providing cutting-edge technology and planning services for urban forestry, parks management, and arboriculture. Their TreePlotter™ Software Suite is used by governments, nonprofit organizations, universities, and private industry around the world. The PlanIT Geo team is driven by a passion for trees and technology and is widely regarded as innovators and trusted partners in urban and community forestry programs.

Husqvarna has been manufacturing high performing products since 1689 and currently offers a broad range of outdoor power products for parks, forests, and gardens, that are sold in more than 100 countries. In 2020 they focused their innovative attention on the creation of HUGSI, an original platform for exchanging data and knowledge, building global networks, and motivating decision-makers to greenify the world’s cities.

Husqvarna has been manufacturing high performing products since 1689 and currently offers a broad range of outdoor power products for parks, forests, and gardens, that are sold in more than 100 countries. In 2020 they focused their innovative attention on the creation of HUGSI, an original platform for exchanging data and knowledge, building global networks, and motivating decision-makers to greenify the world’s cities.

A Shared Vision

The HUGSI ambition is to help safeguard and improve maintenance of green spaces in urban areas. By applying computer vision and deep learning techniques on satellite images, HUGSI unveils insights about the size, proportion, distribution, and health of green space in urban areas.

 

The PlanIT Geo mission is to map the world’s urban forests for a greener future.

Get to Know HUGSI

HUGSI – Husqvarna Urban Green Space Index is Quantifying the greenness of global cities. By applying computer vision and deep learning techniques on satellite images, HUGSI measures and analyzes urban green space in select cities across the globe.

Is the World Getting Greener?

When we first started developing HUGSI we had two main questions that we wanted to answer; How green are the cities of the world? Are they getting greener? These are our north stars, that drive us to continue our efforts and the expansion of the HUGSI report.

The Green KPI's of HUGSI

The very core of HUGSI are definitely our Green KPI’s, so with this article we wanted to tell the story about them. A KPI is a Key Performance Indicator, a concept widely used in the corporate domain, to measure and follow up something considered as important. We wanted to transform this into the green sector, finding ways to quantifying and measuring urban green space with direct, easy to understand and comparable measurements.

Greenification, An Active Decision

Why are some cities greener than others? It is not a competition; it is a fact. Of course, the urban greenness of a city can depend on many things such as geographic location, overall climate and socio-economic factors – to just mention a few. In our HUGSI report we identify big differences in how the cities distribute in the ranking.

“Making the world more sustainable and greener by sharing data and methods in order to create and sustain a healthy living environment through improved urban green space.”

-Joint mission statement of the PlanIT Geo and HUGSI partnership

What Gets Measured, Gets Managed –  Webinar

Learn how to create and improve your urban forest with readily available and easily communicated data.

Attendees will walk away with a clear understanding of why measuring your urban forest is important, how it is done, and what actions you can take to improve the greenness of your city through the tool covered during the webinar.

Measurement is often the first step toward meaningful action. This webinar will look at how advances in urban greenspace analysis tools are providing cities with insights. Attendees will walk away with a clear understanding of why measuring urban greenspace is important and how that information is collected. The webinar will also cover what actions can be taken to improve the greenness of cities with urban forestry data, including compelling communications, advocating for budget increases, community engagement, and attracting funding.

What Gets Measured, Gets managed webinar from PlanIT Geo and HUGSI Husqvarna

Making the World More Sustainable

“We’re thrilled to partner with Husqvarna, promote HUGSI and the knowledge sharing purpose that it serves. Through this collaboration we will contribute data, content, and stories from clients across the globe.” -Ian Hanou, PlanIT Geo’s Founder & CEO.

Through this partnership, the HUGSI platform will be able to direct users to more detailed geospatial analysis that PlanIT Geo offers using sub-meter resolution imagery. This will provide new insights for communities and policy leaders and support the joint mission statement of this new partnership:

“Making the world more sustainable and greener by sharing data and methods in order to create and sustain a healthy living environment through improved urban green space.”

Global Green Model City

Charlotte, NC, has been awarded Global Green Model City 2020 & 2021 by HUGSI.green.

#1 Charlotte, NC, USA

With 67% urban green space and 77% average health of urban vegetation, Chrlotte has ranked #1 for the second year in a row. View all of the details on their HUGSI Ranking Page.

Get to Know Charlotte

The city of Charlotte is well known for their great urban tree canopy. In this video you will meet the team working to manage the cities urban tree care program.

What We Can Learn from Charlotte's Urban Forest eBook

Learn how Charlotte developed their globally premier urban forest and what other cities can take away from their experience.

View HUGSI #1 Green City, Charlotte North Carolina

Husqvarna Living City: Find Green Opportunities Through Data

Key voices from the industry share unique insights and talk about the challenges, opportunities and solutions to help drive green cities of the future. Program and speakers Husqvarna Living City December 2021: Quantifying greenness of global cities with HUGSI, How data can be used by municipalities to support greenification of urban areas, What were the results and impact of the Groene Stad Challenge?,  Sustainable landscaping for greener cities across Europe, Optimize sustainability benefits of tree through data, What do arborists need in the future to ensure sustainable long-lasting maintenance of trees?, Learn how Charlotte is building a sustainable and greener city for the future through data.