What Lawn Care Reveals About Our Relationship with the Environment.
Lawns have become a central element of the North American landscape. Found in front of homes, around schools, businesses, and in parks, they are often perceived as a symbol of cleanliness, comfort, and normality. Yet behind this apparent banality lies an environmental reality far more damaging than it appears.
In North America, lawns cover huge areas. In the United States, they now represent the largest irrigated crop in the country. More than 63,000 square miles of land are occupied by lawns, an area comparable to the size of Washington state. This omnipresence is not limited to the south of the border. In Canada, in several cities, lawns represent between roughly 8 percent and more than 22 percent of the territory. In Montreal, they cover nearly 100 km², which is equivalent to about 43 times the area of Mount Royal Park. In Toronto, they extend over nearly 80 km², or about 50 times the area of High Park. In many Canadian communities, green spaces represent nearly three quarters of the territory, and a large share of these spaces is occupied by lawns. Over time, they have become a true national obsession.
Lawns are not inherently useless. They provide spaces for play, can serve as pathways through gardens, or frame perennial flower meadows. However, the majority of mowed lawns do not serve these purposes. They exist primarily to be kept short, green, and uniform, requiring constant maintenance.
A massive consumption of resources
Maintaining a “perfect” lawn requires significant amounts of resources. Lawn watering accounts for nearly one third of residential water use in the United States. Landscape irrigation there reaches approximately nine billion gallons of water per day, equivalent to about 13,500 Olympic swimming pools every single day. Even though climatic conditions differ, a significant proportion of Canadian households also water their lawns, often regularly, to keep them green.
Water is only part of the equation. Lawns also consume large quantities of fertilizers, fuel, and chemical products. In the United States, approximately 100 million tonnes of fertilizer are used each year on lawns. Homeowners use up to ten times more pesticides per acre than farmers. Added to this are very high annual costs and a considerable investment of time: homeowners devote many hours each year to lawn maintenance. Even so-called organic lawns, which do not use synthetic fertilizers, have a negative impact due to the heavy watering and repeated mowing they require.
Pollution and contribution to climate change
Lawn maintenance also generates significant pollution. Irrigation, fertilizer manufacturing, pesticide production, and mowing all produce substantial greenhouse gas emissions. Gas-powered lawn mowers emit ten times more pollutants per hour than a car and represent a major source of air pollution. Fuel spills associated with refuelling lawn equipment are massive at the national scale.
There is also a fundamental imbalance: the emissions associated with mowing and lawn maintenance far exceed the capacity of lawns to store carbon. Nitrogen fertilizers further contribute to the problem, as they produce nitrous oxide, a very powerful greenhouse gas. The increase in fertilizer use is directly linked to a rise in atmospheric nitrous oxide.
Moreover, beneath their green appearance, conventional lawns are often rooted in biologically depleted soils. They depend on chemical inputs that disrupt the microbial and fungal life essential to soil health. The shallow roots of turf grasses limit access to underground moisture and make lawns more dependent on watering.
When soils are biologically impoverished, they absorb water less effectively. This leads to increased runoff, which contributes to erosion and water pollution. Fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides are thus washed into lakes, rivers, and groundwater.
A heavy toll on biodiversity
Lawns are highly simplified ecosystems that offer little value for biodiversity. Frequent mowing drastically reduces insect biomass, while the pesticides used on lawns are harmful to many forms of life and are associated with negative impacts on wildlife.
In North America, nearly one native bee species out of four is at risk. Globally, insect biomass has declined dramatically, directly affecting populations of insect-eating birds, which are also in steep decline. Lawn care products are responsible for the majority of reported wildlife poisoning cases, and domestic animals exposed to treated lawns face an increased risk of certain cancers.
An imperfect regulatory framework
Part of these impacts can be explained by a regulatory framework that has long underestimated the risks. Some pesticides were approved without fully independent testing, and substances once considered safe have caused major damage to ecosystems. Glyphosate, for example, has been classified as probably carcinogenic. It is widely used and has been detected in air and rain. Despite major lawsuits brought against pesticide manufacturers, some products remain authorized.
Wildflower meadows: an easy, durable, and accessible alternative
In light of these findings, a different way of designing our landscapes is needed. Wildflower meadows and diversified lawns offer a solution with many benefits. Once established, they require little maintenance. Unlike traditional turf grass, they are able to withstand difficult conditions, such as droughts and extreme weather events, without relying on frequent watering or repeated mowing. Their plant diversity supports a wide range of life forms and contributes to the overall resilience of these environments, which evolve and strengthen over time rather than becoming depleted. This adaptive capacity is based on their functional and structural diversity: by combining plants with different ecological behaviours, wildflower meadows never respond uniformly to droughts, diseases, or climatic stresses, allowing them to regenerate and persist over time, unlike monocultures.
This diversity also translates into significant climate benefits. An established flower meadow can store approximately 70 percent more carbon than a monoculture lawn. Wildflower meadows are recognized as an effective and scalable solution for carbon sequestration, capable of matching or even surpassing forests in terms of underground storage, while establishing much more quickly.
Globally, wildflower meadows store about 20 percent of carbon stocks. In North America, they can store between 4.5 and 40 tonnes of carbon per acre in the top 20 centimetres of soil. The soil beneath 2.5 acres of healthy flower meadow can therefore absorb as much carbon as 150 cars produce in one year.
This storage is driven by photosynthesis: a significant portion of the carbon absorbed by plants is transferred into the soil, where roots feed beneficial microorganisms. When these organisms die, the carbon remains stored in the soil as long as it is not disturbed.
Composed of perennial plants with deep roots, wildflower meadows improve soil structure and health over time and can restore depleted or degraded soils. These plants adapt to poor soils and harsh conditions, without requiring significant inputs once the system is established.
At a collective scale, the effects can be substantial. Converting just 10 percent of residential lawns and public green spaces could have a meaningful impact on insect conservation. By reducing mowing frequency, it is also possible to lower maintenance costs, while allowing more room for living, resilient environments.
Rethinking our lawns does not mean giving up green spaces, but transforming them into environments that are more alive, more resilient, and more consistent with today’s environmental challenges. By making room for wildflower meadows, environmentally harmful lawns are replaced with living, resilient landscapes that support biodiversity and contribute to carbon storage.
To go further:
- Browse our selection of wildflower meadow seed mixes.
- The LawnShare campaign by the David Suzuki Foundation offers practical resources for those who wish to transform their lawn into a more living and environmentally beneficial space.
On the dedicated page, it is possible to sign the pledge to a different approach to green space design, as well as access a toolbox that brings together technical guides to support the transition, from reflection to implementation.
👉 Share Your Lawn – David Suzuki Foundation
References
David Suzuki Foundation. (2024). LawnShare. Retrieved from https://davidsuzuki.org/take-action/act-locally/lawnshare/
David Suzuki Foundation, Dark Matter Labs, Nouveaux Voisins. (2024). Partage ta pelouse : Identifier le potentiel de diversification du territoire par la transformation des pelouses.
Wormser, Owen. (2022). Lawns into Meadows: Growing a regenerative landscape. Stone Pier Press.
WWF Canada. (2024). Does “No Mow May” really help pollinators? Retrieved from https://wwf.ca/stories/no-mow-may-help-pollinators/