IntegrateNbS
Fulfilling the Transformative Potential of Nature-Based Solutions: From Fragmentation to Integration
- Category
- Project
- Call
- DUT Call 2022
- Duration
- –
- Project coordinator
- Western Norway Research Institute
How can urban and rural spaces become spaces of human and ecological thriving? Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are being hailed as solutions that contribute to solving many of today's most pressing social-environmental challenges in urban areas, in ways that are environmentally sound, economically viable and socially just. But implementation of NbS is slow and outcomes vary, hampered by inflexible and siloed forms of governance, conflicts over land use and costs, and social inequality and exclusion. While practical considerations of particular solutions are important, it is often the political and cultural dimensions that pose the largest challenge for successful development and implementation.
The IntegrateNbS project will address this challenge by developing a methodology that can help actors work through practical, political and cultural obstacles in a way that enhances the potential for sustainable and just outcomes for people and nature.
The IntegrateNbS project proposes an integrative approach to the development and implementation of NbS, which accounts for:
- Multiple and interlinked social-environmental challenges (incl. climate change, biodiversity loss, social inequality)
- Multiple kinds of governing entities and societal stakeholders (incl. government officials, civil society actors, business-owners)
- Multiple social dimensions of change (behaviors and technical responses, societal systems and structures, and individually and collectively held beliefs and values)
Specifically, we will:
- Conduct “integrative labs” in six cases in Norway, Poland, Spain, and Sweden
- Co-create an “integrative lab” methodology with associated methods to enhance the transformative potential of NbS across Europe and beyond
- Develop and run a “train the trainers” module to enable lab participants to continue using the methodology in their own work and thereby ensure ripple effects from the project
- Develop and test a set of measurable indicators for “transformative change” and “successful NbS development and implementation”
The overarching goal of the IntegrateNbS project is to support and enhance the potential of NbS to respond to the interconnected social-environmental challenges while also realising the potential for all urban and rural spaces to become spaces of ecological and human thriving, marked by resource efficiency, dignity and livability for current and future generations. This goal will be supported through the following project results:
- More meaningful and diverse participation in urban development processes
- Higher prioritization of NbS and other environmentally sound and socially just solutions among politicians, planners and developers
- Decreased social conflict between inhabitants and actors involved in urban development processes
- Increased recognition among all actors of the value of nature and the possibilities and need for caring for nature in both urban and rural spaces
As of August 2025, we have developed a draft methodology booklet, and most labs have been conducted in the six cases.
Norway
Poland
Spain
Sweden
Asociacion BC3 Basque Centre for Climate Change – Klima Aldaketa Ikergai, Lunds universitet, Nordregio, Szkola Glowna Gospodarstwa Wiejskiego
Ayuntamiento de Bilbao, Confederacion Hidrografica del Ebro, Miasto Minsk Mazowiecki, Sogndal Kommune
Links
Contact
Irmelin Gram-Hanssen
igh@vestforsk.no