Leafy Lab - 11th November 2026

Leafy Lab | Where Auckland’s Green Industry Meets

Wednesday 11 November 2026
Horse & Trap, Mt Eden

Leafy Lab is back this November - bringing together the people who plan, grow, design, build, manage, study and care for Auckland’s living environment.

More than just a networking event, Leafy Lab is a place to connect, learn, challenge ideas and develop better solutions together. It’s an opportunity to step outside your usual corner of the industry and hear different perspectives.

What to expect

We’ll keep things relaxed, practical and conversational, with an evening that includes:

Networking - Meet people from across Auckland’s green industry and make new connections.

Two guest speakers - Hear from Dr Tim Welch from Auckland University and Nic Thomson from Iceberg, bringing valuable knowledge and insights to the conversation.

Time to talk - There’ll be plenty of opportunity to continue the conversation, ask questions and connect with others between sessions.

Drinks & nibbles - Your ticket includes two complimentary drinks, generously provided by Greencycle, plus nibbles throughout the evening. A cash bar is also available.

Meet our speakers

Dr Tim Welch

Senior Lecturer in urban planning at Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland and Director of the Better Places Lab.

Tree by Tree: Mapping Auckland's Urban Forest from the Air and on the Ground

You can't plan cooler, greener streets without knowing which trees you already have. Auckland now has a tree-by-tree map. ALTO, the Aotearoa Long-term Tree Observatory, brings Council and Auckland Transport registers together with the 2024 aerial laser survey to map more than six million trees. Each comes with its height and crown, canopy history back to 2013 for many, estimates of its roots and environmental benefits, and a grade for how sure we are. It's free and open to everyone.

It also has blind spots anyone who works with trees will recognise. Fewer than one tree in fifty has a recorded species. Trunk sizes are estimated from the crown. Some register entries point to trees the survey cannot find, and some trees are registered twice.

This talk shows what ALTO can already do for arborists, designers, ecologists and planners, where it gets things wrong, and how KYTE, a free phone app for the tree in front of you, turns a photo and a tape measure into evidence the map can learn from.

Nic Thomson

Founder of Iceberg - We help organisations transform from the inside out.

What If the People Closest to the Work Ran the Work?

Across very different industries, organisations are experimenting with moving information, authority and ownership closer to the people doing the work.
But what actually happens when you try it?
Drawing on real organisations navigating this shift, Nic will explore the experiments, tensions, failures and breakthroughs emerging along the way, and what we’re learning about what actually works in practice.
This won’t be a polished story about one organisational model. It’s a look inside living experiments and the lessons emerging as organisations learn to work differently.

Who is Leafy Lab for?

Whether you're a practitioner, designer, planner, asset manager, business owner, apprentice, or simply interested in the future of Auckland's living environment, Leafy Lab is a place for you.

Come along, meet people outside your usual network, challenge ideas, share what you know and discover practical ways we can work together to create better outcomes for Auckland’s living environment.

With thanks to our supporters

Greencycle - Drinks Sponsor
Auckland Council - Supporter
Treetools - Stallholder
NZARB - Supporter