Public gardens can demonstrate their economic, environmental, and social impacts to demonstrate their value to surrounding communities by utilizing valuation tools for development and sustainability policies. The use of impact studies can play a vital role for public gardens to garner support for additional funding and support. The social roles of public gardens would change more rapidly if the organizations had evidence of their impact on those visiting the gardens, were more outwardly focused on the community, increased their capacity and skill set among staff, increased their funding, and had upper management support. As a result of this session, participants should be able to utilize research results and guidelines to implement valuation tools in their public gardens to determine social, economic, and environmental benefits and impacts.

Presenter: 

G. Burgner, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas