Restoring nature, enhancing active mobility: The role of street greenery in the EU’s 2024 restoration law

This article argues for the importance of integrating a mobility perspective into urban greenspace planning and practice related to the 2024 EU Nature Restoration Law. Street greenery can play an important multifunctional role in promoting ecosystem services and functions, sustainable mobility, and human health and well-being. However, planners need more evidence on how street vegetation affects health and well-being during everyday active mobility, as well as what type, where and for whom to enhance vegetation. We discuss current advancements and gaps in literature related to these topics, and identify key research priorities to support restoration policy and practice. These include: moving beyond dominant scientific thinking of being in place to moving through space in understanding greenery exposure and experience; use of multiple exposure metrics with attention to temporal dynamics; integration of objective and subjective assessments; and investigating further the role of street greenery in reducing environmental injustices.