Our Vision and Story

Context

Although cities are major energy consumers and significantly contribute to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, their high density of socio-economic activity and built environment design creates opportunities for promoting climate protection.

The JUSTNature project addresses four key challenges:

Income & wealth inequalities and discriminations as a driver of urban spatial disparities.

Dispersed & isolated urban elements of high biodiversity value.

Differently impacted by urban transformation processes.

Environmental & climate impacts not distributed evenly.

Objectives

The overall objective of JUSTNature is the activation of nature-based solutions (NbS) by ensuring a just transition to low-carbon cities, based on the principle of the right to ecological space.

This in particular refers to the right to clean air and indoor/outdoor thermal comfort for human health and well-being, as well as thriving biodiversity and ecosystems. It also refers to the duty of not constraining the ecological space of others, in particular in relation to the mitigation of climate change and measures required for reducing GHG emissions.

To contribute to the shaping of low-carbon cities by developing a set of Low carbon | High air quality NbS in 6 European city practice labs (CiPeLs).

To activate the just implementation of Low carbon | High air quality NbS by driving the co-design, co-creation, and co-decision of supporting interventions with regard to 4 innovation dimensions in the CiPeLs:
1) effective governance,
2) long-term NbS system maintenance and operation,
3) social & innovative business models and market design, and
4) efficient technologies and applications.

To ensure a just transition by expanding the general, as well as a city-specific, knowledge base on Low carbon | High air quality nature-building potential.

To empower the place-making capacity of a multitude of actors by defining typologies of governance capabilities and possible interventions that will be tested through the CiPeLs to ensure just access to Low carbon | High air quality NbS.

To activate local innovation ecosystems by launching a bottom-up entrepreneurial discovery process for Low carbon | High air quality NbS in the CiPeLs.

To assess the coherence and (cost-) effectiveness of the impact of interventions by developing a life-cycle monitoring & evaluation framework and strengthening monitoring systems and big data analytics that move beyond KPIs towards a more inclusive and integrated indicator system for low-carbon living conditions.

Conceptual Overview

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Innovative dimensions

JUSTNature will simultaneously drive Innovation in 4 dimensions considered key to achieving the overall aim of low carbon cities:

Enabling governance capabilities, especially with regard to
Long-term NbS system maintenance & operation, combined with
Enabling business models and market design, and informed by
Technology & applications.

Justice aspects

To ensure the ethical considerations of our work are fully front and centre of everything we do, JUSTNature maintains an Ethics Committee to elevate our understanding and consideration of ethical issues across all aspects of the project. The committee highlights and seeks solutions to ethical challenges, such as: the collection, storage and ownership of research data; resolving disputes and conflicts of interest between stakeholders or between stakeholders and project partners; addressing imbalances and the inequity of impacts on gender or disadvantaged socio-economic groups.

JUSTNature project partners contribute to the work of the Ethics Committee on a voluntary basis. Current members include: Eleanor Chapman (Technical University of Munich), Shirley Attard (City of Gzira), Edward Duca (University of Malta), and Daniel Matkovits (Prospex Institute).

Interested in our team? You can find out more by clicking the button below.

Our Team & Partners