Technology and vegetation seem an unlikely pairing, but the marriage of computers and trees is the unique niche of Salt Lake City-based TreeLink. The non-profit, formed in 2002 as an offshoot of TreeUtah, seeks to establish leafy canopies in the cities and towns where nearly 85 percent of America’s population lives. To do this, they depend on the Internet rather than shovels.

“The truth is that we are different from the majority of other urban forestry organizations across the country,” says Pepper Provenzano, TreeLink executive director. “Our bent is very specific to technology.”

Trees “touch us in so many ways,” he adds. “They impact us all. They impact our children. They impact our elderly. Science is showing how fine particulates in the air that you cannot see impacts the lungs of the elderly and children the most.” And, trees act as a filter for these particulates, which are produced by cars and other industrial pollutants, Provenzano says.

In addition, properly placed trees can reduce a business’ energy costs by acting as a windbreak in the winter and providing shade for cooling in the summer.

“We now have science that’s showing that beautification is lovely in urbanized areas, but trees are so much more than beautification,” Provenzano says.

Investing in trees also makes long-term economic sense, he says. “ In terms of infrastructure of a city, trees are the only infrastructure that actually appreciates in value, while all the rest of the infrastructure—the roads, the sewers, the lighting systems, et cetera, et cetera, all are depreciating while trees appreciate in value, for as many as, depending on the species, 75 to 125 years.”

However, trees are an expense that many municipal officials put low on the budget priority list, “and to a legitimate degree,” Provenzano says. “The cities and towns are legitimately struggling to keep up with essential services and because trees are not a capital asset, they more often than not have little or no funds whatsoever for planting and after-care. There are exceptions, of course. Salt Lake City has a pretty robust budget, but then again, we created Tree Utah.”

TreeUtah has been responsible for planting more than 300,000 trees since 1990, and also restoring riparian areas. TreeLink originally was a TreeUtah program established with grants from the USDA Forest Service Urban and Community Forestry Program and the George S. and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation. The purpose of the competitive grant was to create a national urban forestry communications hub.

As the technological aspect of TreeLink began to define the organization’s unique market niche and international reach, company officials realized that they needed to become autonomous.

“We couldn’t ask someone from London to send a check to TreeUtah,” Provenzano says.

TreeLink’s mission is to raise awareness and enable support for healthy urban and community forests worldwide. This is done in two ways, both of which depend on Internet technology.

One of TreeLink’s main offering is its information-rich Website, www.treelink.org, which provides information networking and communications tools for urban forestry professionals, other nonprofits, government agencies, researchers and the public. The information includes resources for education and public policy, best urban forestry practices, access to government-funded research on all aspects of tree and forest biology, planting guides, volunteer opportunities, list serves and links to other tree-related organizations, information and activities.

To help get the trees planted, there’s the tree bank program, www.iTreeBank.org, which provides cooperative marketing tools so local communities can raise funds for tree planting, tree care and public education. TreeBank’s materials are customized for urban forestry efforts and include a plug-and-play donation system that allows donors to send their contributions to their community’s tree bank.

Provo City used TreeLink to establish its tree bank last October (2008). The city already plants about 1,200 trees each year in its parks and streetscapes and through the city power utility tree replacement program, says city forester Scott Bunker. The replacement program allows residents to remove trees causing problems to power lines and put more suitable tree species in their place.

City officials signed a contract with TreeLink for the tree bank because “it’s one more opportunity to push our efforts to green the city,” Bunker says, and “the city can acquire additional funding at no cost to us. As we looked at it, it was a low- to no-risk opportunity that could provide a lot of benefits down the road to grow Provo.”

One benefit city residents derive from a healthy canopy of trees is a cooler community. “Downtown, where there are no trees, can be nine degrees higher than in a park,” Bunker says.

In parking lots, that effect is even more dramatic: along tree-lined borders the pavement can be thirty-six degrees less than in the full sun, he added. Another big benefit for shading parking lots is that it can extend the tarmac life by 10 years, he said. TreeLink recommends that nonprofits or municipalities spend 50 percent of their tree bank funds 50 percent on plant material and the other half on after-care for the trees and public education.

“This is based on consensus across the country among the people working in urban forestry that after-care and education is as important in value to putting the tree in the ground, because one without the other is a band-aid effect,” Provenzano says. The teaching materials “fit well with what we do,” Bunker says. “Our biggest challenge is to educate people.” He also said the tree bank was easy to use. “They have everything already set up, TreeLink does.” And the city already is seeing the effect; the Provo tree bank received its first donation in April.

“So much of what we do at Treelink is education,” Provenzano says. “Major corporations call and they need a primer on what urban forestry is and why it’s worth investing in it.”

Business executives often want to know how many trees they can plant, which isn’t as important as the survival rate, Provenzano says. Also, trees planted in urban areas to establish or re-establish the canopy often must be larger than seedlings to survive. The larger the tree, the more expensive it is, and therefore fewer trees can be bought with the funds.

Tree banks are a simple way for anyone to act on their green intentions by contributing to a local community fund specifically for tree planting, after-care and education, he adds. “We are actually being told by foundations that we have created a new model for philanthropy that builds localized funding, not only from individual support but the corporate sector. It has several distinct features about it, one of which is that we are able to digitally share marketing material. I think we could not do this six years ago.”

Modern digital technology allows TreeLink to cost-efficiently track financing, share marketing materials, communicate with like-minded organizations and provide the information resources at the push of a button, he adds. “Our vision is to leverage technology to provide objective, impartial information; cost-efficient networking and a new model for philanthropy with diverse participation to support healthy urban and community forests.”