Charting nature-based urbanism: Designing with and for Nature for a sustainable urban planet

Abstract
Envisioned as agents of change that can materialise sustainable environments, cities have the potential for accelerating the transformations needed to live within planetary boundaries. Confronted with the complex reality of cities as the habitat of the future, being simultaneously places of opportunity and forces of ecological destruction, we propose that to design and regenerate cities with and for nature, urban planning and design have to take a social-ecological justice perspective. We conceptualise nature-based urbanism as an alternative and transformative approach that by expanding our notion of justice to the natural world, seeks to restore, regenerate, and create urban nature for humans and nature. We present four pillars for charting nature-based urbanism: integrative frameworks, data interrogation, inclusive co-governance, and inter/transdisciplinary science. Using the economy of nature through these pillars, we offer an ethical and responsible solution to ensuring social-ecologically just futures.

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Transforming our cities with a planetary scope within means

For accelerating the transformations needed to live within planetary boundaries, the potential of cities as places, spaces for sustainability to happen and as agents of change, needs to be seized and capitalised. Cities are hubs for innovation, places of opportunity, which inspire visions and ideals of a better life. As complex adaptive systems, cities are shaped by interconnected dynamic technical, social, and ecological components (McPhearson et al 2016). Cities have large ecological footprints which in turn obstruct the planet’s capacity to regenerate and result in geographies of devalued social-ecological systems; where usually the most vulnerable, including nature, are the ones that suffer the burden of impacts. Confronted with the complex reality of cities as the habitat of the future, being simultaneously places of opportunity and forces of ecological destruction, we ask: how can cities add value, rather than devalue the local-global geographies that support, sustain, and nourish them?

We argue that for supporting a sustainable biosphere and for living within planetary boundaries in a rapidly urbanising planet, it is paramount to transform our cities to places and spaces that use the economy of nature as a model. The economy of nature as an urban regenerative approach implies that conserving and restoring urban ecosystems, enhancing peoples’ relationship with nonhuman nature, and creating environmental stewards that actively protect and rehabilitate social-ecological dynamics, are the driving and guiding principles. Using nature as a model requires designing with an expanded notion of justice that seeks to restore social-ecological injustices with and for humans and nature. Our conceptual proposition therefore is: to design and regenerate cities with nature, urban planning and design have to take a social-ecological justice perspective as foundational. 


Approaches to this problem

Whilst sustainable solutions to halt biodiversity loss (such as ecosystem-based adaptation), curb resource exploitation, and deal with pollution exist, their implementation appears ineffective given that they cannot shift economies away from the current unsustainable model of endless economic growth that is at the heart of the planetary destruction (Cristiano et al 2020; Pellow 2019). To address structural injustice in cities caused by the devaluation of social-ecological systems, more radical,  transformative urban agendas that challenge economic growth models are required to move beyond ‘city branding with green’ or ‘green-washing’. With the aim to regenerate the biosphere by minimising consumption patterns, creating more with less, increasing social-ecological value, and creating closed loops that mimic and adapt to natural processes (Cristiano et al 2020), nature-based urbanism comes to the forefront as a systemic and integrated strategy to rebuild capital, resilience, and capabilities of nature in cities.


Against this background we ask: how can we ensure that these life-supporting conditions are sustained intra and inter-generationally, both for human and nonhuman species, whilst adding value, reversing degradation, and enhancing the capacities of urban social-ecological systems? We propose designing with and for nature guided by a social-ecological justice framework. With this framework we are able to shift from (or balance) the traditional human-centred focus of justice and nature benefits to people, and instead position nature-based urbanism within non-anthropocentric philosophies, where inclusivity, relational human-nonhuman values, and social-ecological worldviews are central to designing and developing new pathways to sustainable and just urban transitions.


Benefits and services of nature-based solutions (Source: Frantzeskaki 2016 – EU-Brazil dialogues brief on nature-based solutions presented in UN Habitat III, Quito, Equador)



Designing with and for nature to repair social-ecological injustices 

Planning and designing with and for nature is, in its most fundamental sense, the essence of using one means for delivering multiple functions and benefits to society and nature. Nature-based solutions, which harness, enhance, and restore ecological processes and functions, can be cost-effective, with long-term beneficial implications and reductions in water, carbon, energy, and material footprints (Raymond et al 2017; Frantzeskaki et al 2019). This strategy indicates a reduction or complete elimination of the use of extracted materials to create infrastructure – infrastructure that is used to for example manage stormwater or process waste, and is replaced by natural infrastructure that delivers all these functions in a cyclical economic and efficient way. These solutions can be purely nature-based, such as the restoration or conservation of nature reserves and waterbodies, to those that have a hybridization of technology and infrastructure and ecological components and processes, such as green roofs, and water sensitive design strategies (e.g. rainwater gardens, bios wales) (Raymond et al 2017). Designing and delivering nature-based solutions is challenging and needs to be addressed from a systems’ thinking, inclusive, multi-actor, multi-level, requiring weaving of multiple knowledges, and a multidimensional approach (Frantzeskaki et al 2019; 2020).


We propose addressing these challenges by using social-ecological justice as a guiding framework in charting the scaling up of nature-based solutions at city-level, or as we propose: a nature-based urbanism. Social-ecological justice brings a relational lens to issues of justice, considering not only justice to humans, but also to nonhuman nature. It also lifts the analysis of justice from only a distribution of harmful impacts and burdens on the most vulnerable groups, to one that values social-ecological systems, human-nonhuman capabilities and their interactions as active agents (Schlosberg 2013). Social -ecological justice is then framed under four dimensions: distribution, participation, recognition, and capabilities. This translates to the fair distribution of goods and harms amongst human and nonhuman nature, participation and inclusion of nonhuman nature as an active agent in socio-political processes, and the recognition of social and ecological interactions and capabilities of both human and nonhumans (Kortetmäki 2018; Schlosberg 2013).  In line with this, we conceptualise nature-based urbanism as an alternative and transformative approach to not only exploring issues of justice in cities by expanding our notions of justice to the natural world, but also to rehabilitating, regenerating, and restoring urban nature with and for nature.


Figure 1. Diagrammatic representation of a transformative research proposal to nature-based urbanism (maps adapted from Pineda Pinto et al 2021; Victorian Planning Authority 2019 and  types of nature-based solutions presented from Almenar et al 2021; Eggermont et al 2015).
{Note: Regions in darker red expose high distribution of impacts, such as high levels of contaminated land  and polluting uses, show low valuation or recognition of social-ecological systems, and low rates of
representation of nature, for which we used indicators that are proxies for environmental care and stewardship.}

Nature-based urbanism

We propose four pillars for charting nature-based urbanism (Figure 1): First, for guiding urban design, planning and governance, social-ecological-technological systems approaches and justice thinking need to be weaved in together. Through its four dimension, social-ecological justice can inform and weave in the well-established social-ecological-technical systems framework (SETS), which looks at cities as an interlinked system of technical, social, and ecological components interacting and affecting each other (McPhearson et al 2016). Applying such an enriched SETs framework to on-going plans or urban regeneration programs, can result in identifying blind spots or untapped opportunities for urban planning to plan and design with nature, as well as target hotspots of injustice that require more transformative approaches (Pineda Pinto et al 2021).

Second, for building a business case for nature, collected evidence and data have to be interrogated with a justice lens for more inclusive and just designs and plans. Such an approach can be instrumental for screening big data as well as for organising citizen science for designing and planning with and for nature in cities. For example, this will ensure that collected evidence and data include indigenous knowledge, practices and technologies to be part of the case for nature in cities.

Third, for bringing designs and plans into implementation, an inclusive governance approach that enables co-creation with people and nature and co-management of nature in cities is important. A co-creation institutional space is instrumental for bringing together the knowledge and creativity in which a diverse range of stakeholders, from community activists, to environmental planners, designers and policy makers, collaboratively develop a roadmap of nature-based actions that respond to the diagnosed social-ecological injustices. Co-creation can result in actionable policy, planning, and design recommendations that can inform local governments and other stakeholders involved in the restoration and protection of social-ecological systems in their communities (Frantzeskaki et al 2019). All different types of NBS in cities (Almenar et al 2021; Eggermont et al 2015) have to be planned inclusively through co-creation with people and nature.

Fourth, foundational to all these pillars is a science-policy-community-industry collaboration that supports and is supported by inter- and transdisciplinary research of urban social-ecological-technological systems, their innovations and transformations. A science-based and driven approach – a new form of science of cities (Batty 2003) - is important in further supporting evidence-based policy and the learning paradigm of urbanism (De Roo et al 2020). This extends to new modes of knowledge production and new sources of knowledge for positioning nature as integral in cities. Science is catalytic to paradigm shifts and urban transformations, especially for decolonising perceptions and valuing of nature and re-appreciation of urban ecologies of renatured or native landscapes (Ignatieva et al 2020).


Conclusion

The economy of nature, which harnesses energy from the sun, recycles materials in continuous regenerative processes, and self-balances and adapts to changes and shocks (Ricklefs 2008), provides the principles for designing our buildings, neighbourhoods, and cities. Rather than extracting, nature-based solutions add value and resources that restore, and improve ecological processes, foster long-term resilience, increase the quality of life for both humans and nature, and ensure ecosystems are sustained for future generations. Using the economy of nature, with its circular processing and regenerative capacities, we offer an ethical and responsible solution to ensuring social-ecologically just futures. This socio-ecologically justice way of envisioning cities as resilient and renourished social-ecological-technical systems, opens new opportunities for co-designing with and for nature – or as we envision, charting a nature-based urbanism for a sustainable urban planet.





Fecha de entrevista: 12 de agosto, 2020