Lack of Knowledge and Awareness
- Amongst municipal workers: as a cross-sectoral topic, NBS requires the engagement of multiple departments. In many cases amongst the UNaLab partner cities, the concept is placed more intrinsically within the departments responsible for green space and water management. In order to effectively deploy the concept beyond these departments, a broader level of awareness and exchange is necessary.
- Amongst decision makers: in many cases, politicians also do not yet see the potential of NBS to support the city in achieving long term objectives.
- Amongst local businesses and citizens: for the effective implementation of NBS, the participation of the private sector is necessary. Multiple cities reported difficulty convincing local businesses to integrate NBS into their strategies. Buy-in is also important amongst citizens, who on one hand can present strong opposition to the implementation of NBS, but also should be considered central partners and co-creators of NBS in the city.
- About the areas that are at risk of climate change: in multiple cases it was reported that there is a need for more data related to climate change scenarios to better target and justify the development of NBS. Also beyond a purely climatic perspective, integration of different data sets (such as those related to vulnerable groups, and human settlement scenarios) will help cities better target NBS.
- About the potential of NBS to address challenges, their co-benefits and the suitable types to employ: Factors such as the limited evidence base for the ability of NBS to achieve climate related challenges, or knowledge about the potential co-benefits they can deliver.
- About the functions/services nature provides to cities: Awareness of the services that nature provides to cities is still considered insufficient amongst partner cities. A few of the partner cities have begun integrating ecosystem services into municipal accounting processes, but there remains limited awareness about the value of the services that existing and future NBS/green infrastructure can provide.
- About the technical aspects of planning, building, and maintaining NBS: NBS presents a fundamentally new way of conducting urban development. From a technical perspective, this presents challenges as it requires new processes and techniques to be integrated into engineering and land use planning processes. It has also been highlighted that poor or wrong implementation of NBS and the resulting negative effects are a threat to public perception, acceptance and support. In some cases, the technical knowledge is present but must be effectively distributed, emphasising the importance of learning between cities.
Knowledge and awareness should not only be viewed as a challenge to the successful implementation of NBS. NBS also presents an effective tool to raise knowledge and awareness around climate change adaptation and sustainability-related challenges. While concepts such as ecosystem services and green infrastructure can be more difficult for local citizens and companies to grasp, NBS has the potential to communicate the principles of these concept in a way that can be more accessible for actors beyond technical practitioners.
Governance-related actionfields to support NBS uptake
Embedding NBS in existing plans and strategies
The action-oriented approach of developing “solutions” differentiate NBS from the other concepts in that it can be employed at a means for actors to achieve existing objectives.
Experimental areas for pilot projects
Experimentation can allow for the development of locally attuned interventions whilst facilitating learning processes between municipal staff, citizens, developers and other possible stakeholders.
Development of shared visions
An important building block of long-term planning approaches begins with the development of a collective vision. Cities will struggle to define precisely how the city will be in the distant future, but the process of actively and collectively defining what the city should become can support as an effective “guiding star” for urban actors to work towards.
Utilising environmental and sustainability management systems
In order to ensure objectives in the municipality are being met it is important that the sustainability performance is tracked and assessed in a systematic way.
Development of a resilience strategy
In order to effectively respond to anticipated future changes, cities need to undertake strategic action today to enhance their resilience in the future.
Awareness campaigns
Raising the awareness of local stakeholders and citizens is vital to implement successful NBS programs.
Structures for cross-sectoral cooperation
Cross-departmental structures can take different forms, such as ad-hoc teams, working groups with regular meetings and common work procedures, cross cutting programs based on city objectives, or new departments focusing on cross cutting themes or targeting a specific urban area. Cities should adopt the organisational structures that are best suited to their own institutional context.
Fostering of informal networks
The establishment of formal cross-sectoral bodies is a central starting point for breaking down silos in the municipality. However, informal networks are an additional factor promoting cross-cutting actions and establishing trust between actors. It is important for local actors to know representatives from other departments personally and be able to contact them directly to organise a meeting or discuss relevant points.
Training of administrative staff in cross-cutting issues
Training of administrative staff in cross-cutting issues Personnel development and training in cross-sectoral issues is an essential part of a learning organisation. Training fosters knowledge transfer, enhances innovation among the employees and improves efficiency.
Central contact point for NGOs
Local NGOs represent an important potential supporter of NBS. Cities should be establishing effective channels of communication with these actors.
Review of the existing policy framework around NBS
NBS as such are often not explicitly targeted through local regulations and incentives. Still, as an integral and highly cross-sectoral part in the urban system, they are both supported and inhibited by various policies from different areas.
Use of compensation schemes
Compensation schemes are mechanisms which ensure that the overall function (e.g. ecosystem services) of a specific site is being preserved. Plot owners and developers are requested to provide compensation for depleted ecological services (e.g. through sealing new surfaces; cutting down significant trees etc.).
Data management strategy
A strategy can help cities to better encompass their data-related goals within sustainable development measures.
Data governance and management inside department
Data governance is a key element for sustainable data management and includes several elements to which the city has to pay attention: monitoring, management roles, data quality measuring, and operational rules.
Data governance and management between municipal departments
Data Governance plays an important role in all levels of a municipality. Therefore, to realise an efficient data governance between municipal departments the following issues should be addressed for urban data objects.
Targeted fees and other charges
The internal revenues could be strengthened by designing area-specific charges based on the additional infrastructure costs incurred because of the development/reconstruction of the urban districts.
Apply the “polluter-pays” principle
The “polluter-pays” principle targets fees and other charges for activities that have negative environmental consequences. The fee creates an incentive for actors to reduce the activity and thus the negative outcomes associated with it.
Financing across multiple departments
Local governments might expand the pool of available funding for NBS by coordinating funding across the budgets of multiple municipal departments. This coordination has potential to enable cost sharing across the budgets of different municipal departments.
Integration of social inclusion into green space planning
Increasing the opportunities for different actors to take an active part in different stages of the planning process will foster inclusivity in green space planning. This can be supported by a variety of different plans and policies such as comprehensive urban development strategies or green space planning.
Establish a “just-green-enough” approach
Investments in larger green spaces tend to have limited advantages in terms of subjective well-being, while increasing real estate prices. By making an area “just green enough”, social as well as ecological objectives can be obtained without necessarily increasing housing prices significantly.
Quantitative and qualitative assessment tools and standards
Quantitative and qualitative assessment tools and standards can be useful instruments to foster social inclusion of NBS.
PPGIS
Public participation geographic information systems (PPGIS) can be an effective means of better understanding the quality of green space from the perspective of the users.