Calculating Carbon Benefits of Urban Orchards

Summary

Urban agriculture is an important strategy for cities and communities focused on climate adaptation. But its effects on greenhouse gas reduction and emissions prevention are not widely understood, leaving many policymakers and city managers unsure of the carbon payoffs to supporting urban agriculture.

This study sought to explore the multiple carbon impacts of urban orchards, an expanding form of urban agriculture. We used orchards in the Philadelphia area as a case study to test and propose a simple, replicable method to calculate the carbon effects of planting and maintaining orchards.

After investigating the variety of carbon and related ecological impacts of urban orchards, we chose an approach that measures their two areas of greatest carbon impact: carbon sequestration in the trunks, branches, and roots of trees and shrubs; and greenhouse gas emissions reduction from the substitution of locally grown fruit, nuts, and berries for carbon-intensive commercial produce in people’s diets.

This policy digest presents the results of this research, showing the significant carbon effects orchards can have, among other important environmental and social co-benefits. In the appendix, we present a simple approach for urban agriculture support organizations, policymakers, parks and open space managers, researchers, and others to quantify the carbon effects of orchards in their own cities and regions.

Introduction

Recently, the number of urban orchards and food forests has grown across the U.S., which is part of a broader expansion of urban agriculture (Rogus and Dimitri 2015). Orchards diversify local food production beyond annual vegetable crops and signal investments in long-term, even permanent agriculture in city landscapes and communities. Some notable examples include the seven-acre Beacon Food Forest in Seattle, the Urban Food Forest Initiative in Phoenix, and the Orchard Project in Baltimore, among thousands of sites and dozens of orchard and fruit tree support organizations in North American cities. Since 2007, the Philadelphia Orchard Project (POP) has helped plant over 1,700 trees and 4,300 shrubs at 58 orchards and supports 72 orchards overall in Philadelphia (Philadelphia Orchard Project, 2026).

A growing body of research shows that, in the diverse communities where they are planted, these orchards and other forms of urban agriculture requiring similar levels of maintenance, like community gardens and urban farms, support a wide range of social, environmental, health, and other benefits.

Many of the positive ecological and social effects of orchards and community gardens are well-documented, including:

1. Contributions to soil health (Beniston and Lal 2012; Yang and Zhang 2011);
2. Biodiversity restoration (Rada et al. 2022);
3. Green stormwater management (Knizhnik 2012;Levy2008);
4. Local food access and community food security (Krishnan et 2016; Vitiello 2022);
5. Ecological literacy building (Krasny and Tidball 2009; Krasny and Tidball 2015); and
6. Other dimensions of environmental and human health (Draper and Freedman 2010; Lovell 2010; Sia et al. 2023).

Together, these and other co-benefits position orchards as a promising tool for advancing both environmental and social goals in urban areas.

However, while urban gardens have mostly been studied (Dorr et al. 2021), orchards remain a significant gap in the urban agriculture literature. Policymakers and city management professionals lack empirical evidence of the greenhouse gas reductions often touted by supporters of orchards and other forms of urban agriculture, which directly informed our choice of what to measure in our own fieldwork.

In developing the approach we tested, we chose to focus on the two effects of urban orchards most directly related to greenhouse gas reduction, in Philadelphia and cities generally:

1. Carbon Sequestration. Fruit trees draw carbon dioxide from the air.
2. Carbon Offsets. Fruit trees provide local food, reducing emissions from industrial-scale production, shipping, and refrigeration.

We selected these two primary benefits to simplify the method and make it more replicable.

It is important to recognize, therefore, that the calculations presented herein are conservative and do not capture other significant but much smaller carbon benefits of urban orchards, including:

• Less use of fertilizer and pesticides compared with industrial farming (Simon et al. 2011)
• Lower water and energy consumption (Qubaja et 2021)
• Additional carbon absorption and sequestration by co-located plants (Demestihas et al. 2017)

The next two sections relate the methods and results of our research—first on carbon sequestration in fruit trees, and then on greenhouse gas reductions from substituting fruits grown in POP-supported orchards for commercially produced, packaged, and shipped fruits.

Carbon Sequestration

We selected a cross-section of six different community orchards in Philadelphia, planted and supported by POP, to test the method for calculating how much carbon is sequestered inside the woody mass—trunks, roots, and branches—of fruit trees. We followed a similar method as other studies such as Schafer et al. (2019), using calipers to measure the diameter breast heights of trees—4.5 feet above the ground—throughout orchards before inputting them into the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) carbon calculator, i-Tree. This calculator has become the standard tool for researchers in all sectors to tabulate many aspects of trees’ environmental effects, from water absorption to carbon sequestration, but not carbon effects of food substitution.

We measured 165 trees across six different orchards in North, Northwest, Southwest, and West Philadelphia. While the orchards differed in size, age, soil conditions, layout, and other site conditions, all were in close proximity to dense urbanized parts of the city. Each of the orchards was fairly young, with the oldest, Bartram’s Garden in Southwest Philadelphia, originally planted in 2011. At several of the orchards, trees were recently planted, including Paw Paws (Asimina tribola) found at most sites.

In total, we measured 38 different tree species. The most recorded tree was Paw Paw, followed by Sweet Cherries (Prunus avium), Figs (Ficus carica), Sour Cherries (Prunus cerasus), and Asian Pears (Pyrus pyrifolia). The smallest orchard we measured had six trees. The largest orchard we measured had more than 140 trees, of which we measured 51 of them.

Findings

Orchards can sequester an impressive amount of carbon. In our study, the 165 trees we measured currently sequester an estimated 1,679 pounds (lbs.) of carbon annually and store 30.33 tons of carbon overall, though sequestration rates may vary based on species, age, and environmental conditions. Although the levels of carbon sequestered were lower at orchards with many recently planted trees or orchards with large amounts of shade, overall, sequestration numbers were impressive throughout the orchards. Figs, for example, performed well across orchards—just 15 trees stored nearly 16 tons of carbon, accounting for slightly more than half of the total carbon sequestered across the project.

Our findings show that even small, community orchards can meaningfully sequester and store carbon. At the Share Food Program in North Philadelphia, 19 trees sequester 256.5 pounds of carbon annually, in an area that was formerly a parking lot. At Monumental Baptist Church in West Philadelphia, a modest six-tree orchard stores an estimated 3.181 tons of carbon per year—equivalent to 6,362 pounds of carbon stored annually. Both orchards also showed high replacement value. The cost of replacing the carbon sequestration capacity they provide exceeds $10,000. These values are reflected in the Table 1.

We also observed that certain species contributed disproportionately to carbon storage, even when sparsely planted. At the Hamilton School in West Philadelphia, Sweet Almond (Prunus dulcis) trees ranked second in carbon sequestration despite being less abundant than other fruit trees. At Awbury Arboretum in Northwest Philadelphia, Figs made up only 12% of the orchard’s trees but outperformed all others in both carbon storage and replacement value.

Certain fruit trees sequester greater amounts of carbon, which may be considered when selecting what to plant, much like water and other climate requirements (Sydnor 1982).

However, this finding should not be taken to suggest that urban orchards should be planted only with a narrower range of fruit trees that store the greatest quantity of carbon. Rather, our next set of findings on the carbon effects of substituting locally-grown for commercially-produced fruits underscores the importance of planting diverse species to maximize carbon as well as other benefits.

Carbon Effects of Local Fruit Production

Alongside sequestering carbon in tree trunks, roots, and branches, urban orchards’ food production can also reduce carbon emissions by substituting for carbon intensive commercial produce in people’s diets. To better understand how orchards can reduce emissions in our food system, we estimated carbon emissions of commercial and orchard fruit products using a simplified model focused on the supply chain. Using this information, we then estimated the carbon offset of local fruit production—the total carbon whose emission into the atmosphere could have been prevented by the substitution to orchard farmed produce.

Our model considered the effect of substituting fruit produced and shipped in the most common forms in the industrial market with fruit produced in orchards in Philadelphia, using harvest data collected from the orchards POP supports.

In 2023, the 46 orchards supported by POP that reported their harvest grew 5.3 tons of fruits. Our study looked at their four most common fruits: pears, cherries, figs, and plums, to illustrate how substituting for their commercially distributed counterparts compared in terms of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.¹

 

We made three key assumptions in our model:

1. Fruits produced by POP orchards are acceptable substitutes to their commercial counterparts.
2. Emissions produced at the site of farming are roughly equivalent for commercial and urban orchard farming.²
3. Commercial fruits and orchard fruits differ in their emissions especially at three key stages—packaging, transportation, and retail.

Studies show that transportation, food waste, and packaging are the three largest contributors to food-related emissions (Qin and Horvath 2022). Commercial fruit often travels thousands of miles—sometimes by plane or truck—and is heavily packaged and refrigerated, causing emissions to accumulate rapidly. Longer transport distances also increase the risk of spoilage, which contributes to food waste and further emissions (Porter et al. 2016). By comparing these factors between locally grown and commercially sourced fruit, we estimated the carbon savings that local orchard production can offer.

Further details on our methods and models are found in the Appendix. Using estimates found in academic and gray literature, we estimate the transport, packaging, and commercial refrigeration needs of commercial produce. We compare these needs to the local transport and home refrigeration needs of orchard produce.

Findings

Our results show that the carbon savings of producing fruit locally are substantial, as urban orchards avoid many of the emissions linked to commercial supply chains. Fruit harvested from POP orchards is picked directly by residents, does not require plastic packaging, and needs much less refrigeration than commercially distributed fruit. However, distance traveled by fruits and mode of transportation was by far the largest contributor to commercial carbon emissions.

Although each of the measured fruits could be grown around Philadelphia, supermarkets were not purchasing locally grown fruits. Crops like peaches and figs that grow in most temperate regions travel great distances to reach supermarket shelves. It is common, at certain times of year, to find Turkish figs, Chilean peaches, or cherries from the West Coast U.S. in a supermarket in Philadelphia. Therefore, differences in emissions compounds for perishable, air-flown fruits such as figs—1 kilogram (kg) of commercial figs produce an estimated 20 kg of CO2 versus 6 kg of CO2 for local figs. As a result, local POP fruits have a fraction of carbon footprint of store-bought alternatives.

The carbon impact of substituting to orchard production is further underscored when we compare orchard carbon to commercial carbon. As highlighted in Figure 3, all orchard fruits in our study produced a fraction of carbon emitted by commercial production. Even cherries, our least “efficient” substitution produced only 40% of carbon that was emitted by commercial cherries.

Policy Recommendations

The literature, research findings, and replicable methods summarized in this digest and its Appendix help demonstrate the clear, calculable carbon sequestration and replacement/offsets payoffs of planting and sustaining urban orchards.

Together with other research on the numerous ecological benefits of orchards, our findings suggest that orchards belong squarely within the sustainability planning and environmental investments that cities make in the face of climate change. They offer measurable carbon sequestration and substitution effects, along with multiple other co-benefits of relevance to municipal and county water authorities, parks and recreation, and health departments.

Public officials, philanthropy, and support organizations face relatively low-cost, high-reward opportunities to employ orchards and other forms of urban agriculture to help cities and communities adapt to climate change. These range from adapting land use regulations to specify orchards and fruit trees as permitted uses on park land and other spaces, to distributing fruit trees to backyard and community gardeners, to funding orchard support programs in city parks departments or nonprofit organizations.

The findings from this study—and the methods detailed in the Appendix—give policymakers, city management professionals, and urban agriculture support organizations clear evidence of the carbon payoffs of these investments, as well as tools to make their own specific calculations.

Appendix

Step 0: Creating a Model

We follow a very simple model, similar to that used by Qin et al. (2021), to calculate carbon offset of urban orchard production. Adapting their methods, we understand that carbon emissions caused during the production of various fruits are the sum of emissions caused by packaging, transportation, and refrigeration. Using estimates for these variables, we first calculated the carbon emissions of commercial and orchard fruits.

Step 1: Deriving the Estimates

Estimates for packaging and refrigeration emissions were obtained from other studies. Estimates for carbon emissions of plastic packaging used to store 1 kg of fruit is obtained from Qin et al. (2021).

Emissions for refrigeration are different for commercial and orchard fruits. Commercial fruit requires heavy-duty retail refrigeration, whose values from Sanjuán et al. (2014). Conversely, orchard fruits only require home refrigeration whose estimates are downscaled from annual values provided by the Center for Sustainable Systems (2024).

While estimates for the above components are expected to be roughly equal across the U.S., transportation emissions are unique to each fruit and location. As a result, they required a multistep calculation—first, to understand where these fruits are coming from, and then to understand what type of vehicle in which they were transported.

We relied on surveys done by various U.S. agencies to understand fruit importing trends across the U.S. and in Philadelphia. Data show that fresh fruit imports in the U.S. have been steadily increasing since 1999, reaching a maximum of 13 million metric tons in 2024 (U.S. Department of Agriculture).

The Harmonized Systems (HS) Trade Data at the national scale for 2023 highlighted this trend as nationally, the U.S. had a trade deficit in all studied fruits except cherries. This information was obtained by comparing imports of pears, plums, figs, and cherries to their exports. We find from the trade census that more pears, plums, and figs were imported into the U.S. than were exported, whereas more cherries were exported than imported. Based on this information, we assume that cherries found in Philadelphia are likely to come from domestic sources, whereas the other fruits are more likely to come from international sources.

Then, we looked at domestic and international trade patterns at the state and country scale to understand the regions where these fruits are most likely to originate from. We extracted raw state-level export HS data for cherries and calculated overall shares of national exports by state. These data showed that more than 90% of domestic exports of cherries came from the two western states of California and Washington. For international produce, we again downloaded port-level import data for Philadelphia and calculated the share of imports by region of origin.

Using this information, we calculated a weighted average distance from these regions to Philadelphia for our distance estimates. For instance, as 83% of fig imports to Philadelphia came from Europe and 17% from South America, we assumed that the distance traveled by 1 unit of figs to be the average weighted distance of Philadelphia to Turkey and Brazil (the largest exporters in those regions).

These distance estimates then helped us understand the mode of transportation used. For shelf stable fruits like pears and plums, we assumed that most of them were transported via cargo ships. Perishable figs are airflown (Santos 2021), whereas cherries from domestic farms are likely to travel via trucks.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides estimates for CO2 emissions by mode of transport (EPA 2024), which are noted below. Estimates for transportation mode estimates (i.e., truck, cargo planes, and ships) are provided in short-ton miles, whereas estimates for car emissions are provided in vehicle miles. To derive estimates for kilograms of CO2 for 1 kilometer (km) of distance, we follow a conversion formula as follows:

A similar approach is used when deriving an estimate for car emissions; however, in this case, we assume that the average payload for a car (one passenger plus groceries) will be roughly 100 kg.

Step 2: Calculating Carbon Emissions

After deriving these estimates, we then inserted the values to our final equation. Emissions produced by 1 kg of commercial farmed figs, for example, can be noted as:

We would calculate emissions from orchard farmed fruits with a few modifications to the above equation. First, we assume that fruits produced in Philadelphia don’t require industrial transport or refrigeration, which makes its emissions during the transportation phase miniscule.

Similarly, packing cost also is non-existent for orchard production, as fruits are picked directly from the tree by consumers. For simplicity, we assume that POP fruits travel on average 7 km by car from farm to table, and are in storage for 7 days.

Step 3: Calculating Carbon Offsets

Finally, we calculated the offset in emissions by subtracting the carbon released during the lifecycle of a commercially farmed fruit by the carbon released during the lifecycle of an orchard farmed fruit.

Step 4: Organizing variables for i-Tree

We used the i-Tree Eco platform to calculate both carbon sequestration and carbon storage for individual trees. i-Tree Eco incorporates 26 distinct carbon equations built into the platform by the United States Forest Service (USFS) to estimate annual carbon sequestration and total carbon storage based on tree-specific measurements (Nowak 2021).

To run i-Tree models, five core variables are required for each tree:

1. Diameter at Breast Height (DBH)
2. Tree Height
3. Crown Height
4. Base Height
5. Canopy Width

These five variables were collected in the field for 165 trees across six orchards.

To calculate DBH, we found the above-ground circumference of a tree and divided the value by π (pi). Standard DBH measurements are typically taken at 4.5 feet above ground level (Bertolette and Leverett 2014). However, because many of the trees in our sample were shorter than this height, we followed the recommended alternative—measuring the smallest circumference just below the lowest branch union (Portland Parks and Recreation). For multi-stemmed trees, such as figs (Ficus carica), we measured the circumference of each individual stem and calculated an equivalent DBH using the following equation:

Where C₁² + C₂² … C_X² represents the circumference of each stem. This method, adapted from i-Tree guidelines, allows for a consistent comparison between single- and multi-stemmed trees in the carbon model.

Step 5: Calculating Carbon Sequestration and Carbon Storage with i-Tree

i-Tree Eco makes its calculations using multiple species-specific equations embedded within the platform (Nowak 2021). Although all calculations were performed within the i-Tree Eco interface, the model applies a standardized method to estimate carbon storage based on tree biomass. According to Dr. David Nowak, one of the core equations used to adjust biomass-based carbon estimates is:

Where:

1. C_est= estimated carbon storage
2. C_ceq= carbon value from the original equation used for the biomass estimate
3. WD_spp= wood density of the specific tree species
4. WD_ceq= wood density used to develop the original biomass equation

This equation allows i-Tree to account for differences in species-specific wood density, improving the accuracy of carbon storage estimates. These and other species-based equations are built into i-Tree’s internal processing system and are automatically applied when species identity and structural variables are entered during field data input (Nowak 2021).

Onsite, we used measuring tape to collect the five required variables for each tree. These data were then entered into the i-Tree Eco platform to model carbon sequestration and storage.

To begin, a new project must be created within the platform, specifying the project name, geographic location, and selected data fields. While the minimum required inputs are species identification and DBH, more accurate carbon estimates are produced by enabling the “Tree Detail Fields” setting, which includes additional variables such as total tree height, crown height, crown width, and crown light exposure.

Once the project is set up, users navigate to the “Data” tab and select “Trees” to enter field-collected measurements for each individual tree. After data entry is complete, the model is initiated by selecting “Click Data for Processing,” under the same tab. The processing period typically takes several hours, after which users can access detailed carbon sequestration and storage outputs for each tree, as well as summary reports for the full dataset.

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Acknowledgement: This project is in partnership with researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Orchard Project (POP).

1. Our study did not look at the offset effect of Paw Paws, POP’s second largest harvest, as the fruit is not traditionally sold in retail and therefore, would not be consumed as a substitute. [↩]
2. We take this assumption for simplifying our study method. Understanding differences in carbon emissions across the entire lifecycle would require a long-term assessment of various farm inputs (i.e., machinery and fertilizers) that are currently beyond project scope. [↩]