Urban Nature Audit vs the market.
Most nature-based intervention tools stop at "trees planted" or surface-temperature heatmaps. Urban Nature Audit is the only platform that translates ecology into the city's balance sheet — avoided stormwater, avoided energy load, avoided hospital admissions — and ships a CFO-ready investment case in a single export.
Avoided-cost engine pegged to local water, energy and healthcare tariffs — not generic indices.
SCS Curve Number, TEB, UTCI, GBIF — the same models academics defend, wired to a paint canvas.
Editable React-PDF investment case with policy alignment (GBF, BNG, NRL, IRA, TNFD).
Side-by-side comparison
| Capability | Urban Nature Audit Urban Cat | i-Tree Eco USDA Forest Service | Green Cities Indicator C40 / WCCD | EcoMetrix Autocase | ArcGIS Green Infra Esri |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paint nature-based interventions on satellite map | Mapbox + draw tools | Form-based inventory | Indicator-only | ~Polygon import | Drawing canvas |
| Avoided-cost ROI ($ stormwater + energy + health) | 3-vector, transparent math | ~Energy & runoff $ only | ~Stormwater only | ||
| Editable local cost inputs (water, kWh, healthcare) | Per-project assumptions | ~Hard-coded US defaults | ~Limited | ||
| UTCI human-comfort layer (humidity + wind) | Roadmap S5 — TEB + UTCI | Surface temp only | ~LST proxy | ||
| GBIF biodiversity uplift + native palette | Live GBIF, ranked species | ~Index only | |||
| Auto-match policy frameworks (GBF, BNG, IRA, NRL…) | Country + intervention aware | ~SDG mapping | |||
| 5/10/20-year discounted ROI projection | NPV with maturity ramp | ~Static yearly | ~Simple linear | ||
| Editable PDF investment case (CFO-ready narrative) | AI exec summary, branded export | ~Static PDF | ~XLS export | ||
| TNFD / ESG alignment | TNFD + GBF Target 12 mapping | ~ESG indicators | |||
| Open data baseline (Sentinel-2, GBIF, Open-Meteo) | Live, no key required | ~Curated US datasets | ~Limited coverage | ~ArcGIS Living Atlas |
Sources: i-Tree Tools (USDA), C40 / WCCD ISO 37120, Autocase EcoMetrix product pages, Esri Green Infrastructure Toolkit. Comparison reflects publicly documented capabilities at the time of writing.
- Three avoided-cost vectors in one model — not just runoff or canopy.
- Locally calibrated: water, kWh, healthcare costs editable per project.
- Auto-matched to the policies the client must report against.
- Ships an editable, branded PDF instead of an Excel dump.
- i-Tree Eco — best-in-class for canopy, but US-centric defaults and no painted scenarios.
- Green Cities Indicator — strong for benchmarking, no project-level ROI.
- EcoMetrix — solid stormwater $ but no biodiversity / policy layer.
- ArcGIS Green Infrastructure — flexible canvas, but you build the math yourself.