Project Aims

JUSTNature aims to both level the disparity and minimise the overall effects that environmental consequences have on the people who live in a city.

It brings together 20 international partners, including research institutions, universities, non-profits, and SMEs. Using existing research as a basis for action, they are testing practical innovations in seven participating cities. Merano and Bolzano in Italy are focussing particularly on how two cities can work together, with other “labs” taking place in: Munich, Germany; Szombathely, Hungary; Leuven, Belgium; Gzira, Malta; and Chania on Crete, Greece.

The project acknowledges that fairness should be a central feature of any transformation process applied in the creation of low-carbon cities by implementing greenery to meet everyone’s right to access ecological spaces, and preventing pollution at source.

 

How It Works

Each city has a unique mix of conditions. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) must respond to these, but that requires an intimate knowledge of the location.

JUSTNature sets a standard: from the outset, they conferred with city representatives to work out the local needs and challenges. They found that there are recurring issues shared by cities, and others that are place-specific. Most can be categorised along the lines of:

• Air pollution
• Heating and thermal comfort
• Spatial disparities – that is, how the built environment interacts with urban green and open spaces
• Temporal questions – a tree takes time to grow, so we need to act now for the benefit of tomorrow’s generations.

JUSTNature hosted a series of participatory workshops, marking the beginning of a co-design process that would guide each city’s interventions.

“We launched different workshops with stakeholders and citizens to better understand the needs… what they are seeing as main injustices or environmental injustices.”

By enabling participants to put forward what they perceive to be the main environmental injustices where they live, the project emphasises the process over the tired old priority of financial costs and value.

This provides lessons in engagement too. In a move Sonja refers to as “recognition”, it carefully considers not only who we ask but also how:

• Is the language we use understandable for different groups?
• Can they relate to what we’re talking about?
• Are we removing jargon, which is known to limit who can participate in the conversation?

 

Tools of Engagement

In the test scenarios, JUSTNature provides a framework, ideas, and toolkits for cities to create an environment of change. However, the next steps are up to the individual city because they need to be shaped to the local context.

In Bolzano, Italy, for example, citizens were presented with a map of the city and handed tokens to mark where they see injustices occurring. The tokens could also be used to identify which groups should be involved in forming the city’s plans for NBS.

This exercise was especially useful for highlighting blind spots: learning where (even very successful) plans need to change.

Sonja also cites the example of Leuven, Belgium, which opted to host walk-ins.

JUSTPlant, as the event came to be known, hosted stands where community stakeholders had the chance to get up close with potential designs, select images of the types of interventions they’d like to see in Leuven, and speak to various experts. These types of “low-access” activities remove barriers and allow citizens to air their ideas for shaping local initiatives-to-be. It was through this process that it became clear that citizens wanted to have more contact with water in their city.

 

Going the Extra Mile

Leuven’s idea of using images to easily showcase potential NBS has been developed into a pack of quick-reference inspiration cards, which other cities will soon be able to use in their own engagement activities.

That’s not to say that their drop-in approach is perfect. The JUSTNature team is aware that these kinds of events can easily miss groups who avoid public consultation situations, people who are not used to having their voices heard, or those who are simply not interested. They should still be represented.

So, JUSTNature puts extra effort to reach them by going out into the community.

Careful, though. Sonja warns that “people often mistake cooperation for collaboration”. This, as Sonja reminds us, means truly sharing decision-making power and not just asking for feedback. If we’re asking the public to be involved, we have to take their input seriously; people see through box-ticking engagement exercises, and if they smell a rat, their support will taper off.

We should also recognise the challenge of engagement fatigue, where citizens can grow tired of being asked for their input and so stop engaging – especially if they don’t see their opinions reflected in the outcomes. Sonja recommends we overcome this by keeping them involved before, during, and after implementation. Cities have to work out how.

“Sometimes, I recommend: fail.”

Of course, not everything goes smoothly. One thing we shouldn’t do, Sonja adds, is worry about failing. JUSTNature sees value in acknowledging mistakes, viewing them as powerful learning moments rather than setbacks.  Talking openly about what went wrong is an efficient path to the lessons that will get us to our destination.

JUSTNature is helping to spread these lessons by hosting a learning log, which all the city labs contribute to. Eventually, this will form a reference guide and portfolio of best practices for other cities to dip into.

And this is just the beginning. In the upcoming episodes, we’ll explore how these principles take shape on the ground in different cities, from green roofs in Bolzano to collaborative gardens in Szombathely. Stay tuned!

The JUSTNature project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No. 101003757.

• Host and co-writer: Fanny Téoule 
• Guest: Sonja Gantioler
• Audio editor and writer: Karl Dickinson
• Music composer: Jenny Nedosekina 
• Graphic designer: Julia Micklewright