Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CONNECTING Nature (COproductioN with NaturE for City Transitioning, INnovation and Governance)

Teaser

A very large proportion of the human population now live in urban areas, and the remainder are heavily influenced by the dominance of cities and towns globally. All human communities are now urbanised to some extent. The growth of cities and urban living has resulted in a...

Summary

A very large proportion of the human population now live in urban areas, and the remainder are heavily influenced by the dominance of cities and towns globally. All human communities are now urbanised to some extent. The growth of cities and urban living has resulted in a significant altering of the planet’s ecosystems and their services. We are hearing, on a daily basis, about the problems caused by climate and environmental changes. So, society has devised TECHNICAL solutions and many governments have been promoting BEHAVIOURAL CHANGE solutions, in order to try to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change on our daily lives and to build resilient urban communities. In the Connecting Nature project, we view NATURE as a technology that can provide solutions to climate pressure in cities, and we see the CO-CREATION approach as a key solution to modify our unsustainable behaviour. This is the essence of NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS. Nature-based solutions are inspired by nature, are cost effective, and are capable of providing multiple co-benefits in cities. These co-benefits include environmental services (such as clean air and water, pollution control, and carbon sequestration), ecological services (such as increased biodiversity, better connectivity, and habitat restoration), and social services (such as improved health and well-being, cohesive communities, and social innovation). Connecting Nature brings together cities, businesses and scientists to devise new ways to bring nature-based solutions into mainstream planning, design, management, and governance of cities. There are 31 partners in the project, from 18 different countries. The project is devising new methods to realise the many co-benefits of nature in cities, and in doing so derive new innovations in communication and collaboration, new models for financing this technology, and new ways of measuring the positive effects and impacts of nature-based solutions on all our daily lives and livelihoods. Connecting Nature will create multiple outputs designed to stimulate innovation in business and financing, health and well-being, and governance in cities. It will offer a nature-based solution framework as a practical tool to build societal and climate resilience in urban areas using nature-based solutions. The project will produce models for financing and entrepreneurship that will simultaneously re-nature our cities AND build resilient business communities. It will guide city designers, planners, managers and governments along the path to making cities more attractive places in which to live, work and play. These tools will be scaled globally through the Urban by Nature programme. This programme will provide open access to all communities to encourage cities to embrace nature-based solutions. It will offer mechanisms that transcend language and culture to assist city authorities, businesses, and urban communities. In this way, Connecting Nature will remove barriers to implementing nature-based solutions as well as ‘silo thinking’ and other practices that are restrictive or regressive; building the capacity of all communities to embrace collaborative approaches as mechanisms for building resilience through innovating with nature-based solutions. In an ever increasing urbanising world, contact with nature is becoming rare in cities, so by renaturing cities through nature-based solutions many more people will have access to the diverse benefits of contact with nature.

Work performed

The first 18 months of Connecting Nature have proven a steep learning curve for all partners but also an exciting challenge which has brought out the best in all those working in and with the project. In this time the project has conducted a large number of internal workshops, webinars, meetings, investigations, site visits, stakeholder engagement events, city government dialogues, and focus groups. This has resulted in:
• The collection, collation and verification of nature-based solution experiments in cities, and their impacts;
• The production of a set of indicators which align with cities and city planning;
• The creation of a framework for implementing nature-based solutions in cities;
• The identification of nature-based solution Exemplars in Front-runner Cities;
• The creation of novel processes for co-creation and co-production of nature-based solutions in cities;
• The proposing and testing of reflexive monitoring processes as an iterative way to scale up and out and to cross silos;
• The creation of a successful initiation of a knowledge transfer process and nature-based solutions city dialogue;
• Launching a global urban nature programme;
• The development and testing of a toolkit to assist cities to realise business models for their nature-based solutions and explore alternative sources of financing;
• The co-development of an experiential learning process; and
• Developing a strong brand, high profile events and city videos.
We have had a successful start to co-production of implementation strategies in the Front-runner Cities, addressing linked technical, governance and financial themes with city teams and across Work Packages. This has included collaborative working between Connecting Nature SMEs, academic and city partners to start to identify processes for scaling up, and how to embed co-creation, reflexive monitoring and indicators within scaled-up nature-based solution exemplars in each Front-runner City.

Final results

While the project is still in its start-up phase, it has met all expectations and is now developing new areas for exploration. Because Connecting Nature is a truly iterative project, it was expected that the co-creation process would result in little information in the first reporting period. However, contrary to expectations, the project has started to identify areas of potential innovation from scaling with nature-based solutions. By the end of the project we expect that there will be several innovations - especially in the areas of finance models, knowledge transfer processes, reflexive monitoring for silo busting, and validation of the efficacy of nature-based solutions. However, it is too early in the project to identify the exact pathways it will take, and indeed it is nearly impossible because of the iterative processes we are using.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.connectingnature.eu.