Evaluation of innovative policy for Nature-based Solutions: Analysis from three European city case studies

Addressing the current unprecedented climate and environmental challenges and stimulating sustainable development in our urban areas and beyond entails experimentation and innovation in policy making, instead of the siloing that has often been the status quo. Nature-based Solutions (NBS) are well suited to fostering integrated and multi-functional policy solutions to current challenges but are subject to complex governance influences. Through a comparative analysis of interview and policy workshop data in three European city case studies with differing governance structures, this paper examines the external, societal and governing influences on NBS innovation, and the governance structures from which innovation and experimentation in NBS are likely to occur—including the political side of NBS which has hitherto been relatively unexplored. The results indicate a number of important facilitating and hindering factors across the range of governing, societal and external influences, and show some association between NBS innovation and decentralized policy making. They highlight the importance of policy coherence of NBS initiatives with government policy strategy; and of the willingness by policy makers / local government officials to engage with and appeal strategically to political decision-makers regarding external policy drivers—e.g. climate adaptation and health. The data also indicates that where citizen participation and consultation were built into NBS projects, this brought both innovation and additionality—in terms of the design, quality, biodiversity, multi-functionality and co-benefits of green / blue spaces. Key differences that led to differing NBS outcomes included size and complexity of the urban area, and characteristics of the governing architecture.