Leading up to the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, ShadeLA is empowering cities, planners, and designers with data-driven support to increase canopy cover in Los Angeles County.

 
Powered by the University of Southern California's Dornsife Public Exchange and the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, ShadeLA provides practical suggestions, direct links, and resource guides for homeowners, businesses, schools, and communities to increase shade in their immediate vicinity.

A vital resource the organization provides is the Tree Equity Score Shade Map run by national nonprofit American Forests. This map displays the current canopy cover percentage of nearly 200,000 neighborhoods in cities across the United States. Landscape Architects, planners, and designers throughout the country can use this data to create quantified goals for increasing shade in new developments or streetscape projects through additional buildings, shade structures, and trees.

One of the project's partners is Studio-MLA, a Los Angeles-based landscape architecture firm who, according to the ShadeLA website, has promised to use their influence to "[strengthen] shade through broader networks, resources, and visibility to accelerate ShadeLA goals."

This movement is also supported by the Los Angeles Organizing Committee for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games as part of the committee's commitment to optimize the existing infrastructure in Southern California instead of building expensive venues that will fall into disrepair after the games. The stated intent behind this partnership is to minimize the environmental impact of the games while creating an encouraging outdoor environment for visitors utilizing public transportation to travel between venues or to explore the city.

In addition to the 2028 Olympics, this initiative will have a direct impact on the 2026 World Cup and 2027 SuperBowl, both of which will take place in Los Angeles. Beyond the games, increased canopy will improve the daily lives of Angelinos and the thousands of people who visit the region annually.