Organisation
How the municipality is structured and organised has been identified as a crucial factor determining the success of many sustainability or nature-based interventions. These themes are interdisciplinary in nature and thus require the cooperation of a range of actors who typically may not have effectively collaborated in the past. NBS present a fundamentally different approach as compared with conventional urban development. A range of factors explain the novelty of NBS:
- As solutions, NBS tend not to be ad hoc - they are not developed to address one specific problem, but a range of interconnected challenges
- The benefits of NBS interventions tend to be abstract, i.e. can be difficult to quantify
- NBS tend to foster a high degree of public (rather than private) goods; therefore, these dispersed benefits cannot be easily allocated to one department or actor, but multiple departments and actors. At the same time, for the effective implementation of NBS at the required scale the cooperation of private actors is necessary.
- NBS benefits tend to relatively long term payoffs
For these reasons, NBS presents an organisational challenge in terms of the necessity to get multiple actors on board to develop an effective coalition to support their uptake. Conversely, the concept presents a potential mechanism to support and foster better cross-sectoral cooperation as a longer-term governance ambition in cities.
Two central perspectives could be identified:
- Cooperation within the administration: The challenges identified reflect the difficulties in deploying a cross-sectoral concept in the context of the existing silos that still largely characterise municipal governance structures. The identified challenges reflect these issues, highlighting aspects such as: data and knowledge sharing between departments and other municipal agencies; cross departmental financing of NBS; a lack of effective planning tools; aspects relating to the procurement processes; and, the effective inclusion of other themes, particularly “health”, under the NBS umbrella in partner cities.
- Effectively engaging with actors outside of the administration: Like any intervention that targets urban space there will likely be a wide range of stakeholders potentially be affected by a given NBS intervention. In order to increase acceptance of NBS on behalf of the citizens and other local stakeholders, it is important that effective mechanisms for inclusion of these stakeholders are present. In particular to effectively include citizens in the development of NBS there is a need for the effective integration of new co-creation formats.
Governance-related actionfields to support NBS uptake
Development of shared visions
In most cities, the planning of the urban structure is situational, project-based and often limited to the forthcoming 5-10 years. When considering the long-term planning of a city, it is difficult to take into account all the unforeseen changes that might occur over the longer-term. Planners have to constantly deal with shifting targets and conditions.
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.
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.
Use of Blue-Green Factos
This instrument, the Blue Green Factor, allows developers and designers the freedom to decide how green or blue elements should be incorporated in the respective plans and, at the same time, can be used as evaluation criteria in public procurement or in the distribution of land.
Review of existing policy framework
As a rather new concept, 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, including land and zoning, building and construction, water, air, nature conservation, social issues, etc.
Introducing NBS-supportive building regulations
Buildings and new construction have a large impact on the natural water cycle as it involves the sealing of (new) surfaces, compaction of soils, and/or removal of natural vegetation. Also, other climate-related challenges in a city, such as urban heat islands, biodiversity and habitat loss, pollution, etc. are affected and may be worsened by such undertakings.
Introduction NBS-supportive zoning regulations
Zoning plans are an important factor in green space planning and are a means to include site-specific preconditions in urban development. Zoning plans are thus often linked to site-specific regulations and norms. In terms of NBS they often aim at protecting green elements or natural features.
Use of certification schemes and sustainability programs
Several certification schemes and sustainability programs exist with direct or indirect links to urban green and NBS. The main value of such certifications is that if incorporated well, they stand for objectivity, transparency and trustworthiness and are perceived as beneficial by most parties (private, public and citizens).
Data management strategy
Data management is gaining importance in cities where there is an increasing adoption of new technologies as well as governance requirements. A comprehensive data management strategy should be derived from the local government’s long-term objectives and legal requirements. A strategy can help cities to better encompass their data-related goals within sustainable development measures.
Data governance and management within 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.
Data as an instrument for governing external agencies and contractors
As public space data can be understood as public property, several public authorities have defined data access as a precondition to public contracts. This practice helps municipalities to gain access to data and to guarantee data quality, as well as citizens to use apps that contain data from public facilities via third party apps.
TEV Framework in CBA
The application of a holistic cost-benefit scheme (analysis) could be applied to understand the value for money of NBS. Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) supports the economic case and generates data regarding cash savings, risk and financial impacts that feed into the financial case, and which inform the commercial case where procurement is required.
Targeted fees and other charges
Taxes and fees charged to the residents of the cities for delivering the public services have long been an important source of revenue for municipalities. By collecting additional internal revenues, the local governments could enhance their ability to introduce and scale up NBS implementation.
Apply the "polluter-pays" principle
The principle implies that whoever bears the responsibility for the negative (environmental) effects should incur costs associated with the damaging activity. If polluters are taxed on their harmful activities, society is compensated.
Engaging in public-private partnerships
For widespread uptake of NBS throughout the city, the inclusion of private actors is essential. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are a viable option to achieve this goal. Public and private entities may enter contractual agreements aimed at creating, operating and maintaining NBS (Ambrose-Oji et al.,2017).PPP schemes yield benefits for both public and private actors. Public entities gain access to additional capital provided by private partners, while the private entities might gain additional business opportunities. There are different forms of PPPs that cities and private partners can adopt to govern and co-fund NBS. These range from small-scale and short-term arrangements to multi-stakeholder and long-term arrangements.
Introducing MEAT award criterion in public procurment
For effective adoption of the NBS concept and its integration throughout municipal structures, the often prevailing “lowest price offered” mentality in public procuring needs to be overcome within the existing legal framework. One approach includes the Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT) criterion when evaluating the bids. This criterion enables the procurement officers to consider qualitative aspects of the proposed solution, in addition to the price dimension.
Financing across multiple departments
In addition to enhancing internal revenue base and exploring additional external funding opportunities, 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.
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. Utilising online and offline formats, citizens are able to make contributions to a map regarding use and satisfaction with green space.