NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS

Cooperation Manifesto

Re-naturing cities through the cooperation and
support of the European Nature-Based Solutions Projects

One of the most critical impacts on human society and the global environment is aggressive urbanisation, which has increased in scope and scale. Cities have become a point of intersection of problems characterized by complexity and uncertainty. NatureBased Solutions (NBS) are a unifying concept that can support transition to healthy, inclusive and sustainable communities in urban environments and that can help build resilience and climate adaptation.

The NBS Projects

The NBS Projects, funded by the European Commission through the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, have the aim of bringing together cities, citizens, research institutes and industry to demonstrate Nature-Based Solutions and business models that can be scaled up and replicated in a joint effort towards a green urban transformation at a global scale. Since 2016 thirteen projects involving a network of more than seventy five cities and communities in Europe, Asia and Latin America are working on implementing and scaling up NBS in urban areas and measuring their social, environmental and economic impacts to transform cities into more sustainable and livable places. As the number projects and initiatives supporting NBS increases in the coming decade, there is a need for a common manifesto for guiding the cities’ adoption of nature-based solutions. As the number projects and initiatives supporting NBS increases in the coming decade, there is a need for a common manifesto for guiding the cities’ adoption of nature-based solutions.

We, the representatives and supporters of the EU
Nature-Based Solutions Projects

Acknowledge that

• NBS Projects propose and demonstrate an innovative paradigm shift capable of increasing the livability of cities, building resilience and fighting climate changes;
• NBS Projects offer citizens the possibility to participate in the co-design and co-creation of their cities, hence fostering the development of democratic societies;
• NBS Projects carry out innovative research, leading to new, open scientific knowledge;
• NBS Projects develop replicable intervention and financial models to boost
  their worldwide adoption;
• NBS Projects co-design business and exploitation strategies to optimize economic benefits and attract new  investments on green initiatives;
• NBS projects implemented at the regional scale within the watershed provide sustainable interventions that improve the resilience of urban areas;
• NBS Projects have a huge potential to generate societal, environmental and economic impacts and create a global network of renaturing cities

There we declare our commitment to:

• agree to work together in a cross-project collaboration framework to enhance impacts and benefits;
• promote publicly all NBS Projects along with their actions and results;
• enlarge the nature-based solution research and demonstration network involving all societal actors;
  promote and exploit the results of this cooperation approach through proper mechanisms and tools, plain language, scientific accuracy and policy-focused strategies;
• increase the replication potential of EU-supported NBS projects in other European and extraEuropean cities by working together;
• promote the continuous innovation in the NBS framework;
• align technical, economic and social monitoring approaches to enrich a joint knowledge base;
• set up and support a NBS knowledge bank to make replicability, scalability and measurement actions globally available;
• support the creation and scaling up of a new market for and with nature-based solutions;
• provide knowledge repositories, tools for the assessment of benefits, co-benefits and costs of NBS projects, as well as tools to manage stakeholder’s participation processes in order to empower urban
• planning decision making;
• promote new policies in the NBS framework

We declare our commitment to foster the use of nature-based solutions to improve the quality of life of all citizens, to  increase our cities’ resilience to climate change and sustain the green urban transition towards more sustainable cities and livable environments, by

• increasing the use of NBS with a citizen-centric approach to enhance well-being and inclusion through co-creation  and co-implementation actions;
• favouring the integration of NBS in urban renaturing plans;
• providing evidence-based and open access knowledge for NBS;
• defining and overcoming NBS-related barriers (scientific, technical,political, legal, social, economic);
• exploring and applying new business and investment models for anyscale deployment of NBS;
• contributing to the enlargement of the network of societal actors
• involved in NBS;
• promoting the creation of a global NBS market;
• measuring and monitoring the specific and net effects and impacts of NBS;

#NBSMANIFESTO