INNATURE | Tampere universities

INNATURE - ENHANCING BIODIVERSITY AND SOCIAL INCLUSION BY TRANSFORMING EUROPE’S LIVING ENVIRONMENTS - will accelerate access to, and maximise benefits of Nature Based Solutions (NBS) by:

co-producing NBS that are NEB (New European Bauhaus) ‘by design’ through Eco-Social Living Labs
protecting, celebrating and enhancing existing local biodiversity through Art Conversations and collaboration and biodiversity actions with local ecologists
ensuring long-term resilience of the NBS through a Holistic Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (including citizen science), facilitated by an Integrated Digital Platform
using NBS to re-imagine new living futures in Europe and creating a Local Community Economy-Ecology Value Framework; and
mapping these processes and results in a new framework and practical guidelines for ‘NEB-by-design’ NBS, culminating in the INNATURE Pattern Book.

The five demonstration cases are at the heart of the entire project design. The demonstration sites, located in different European regions, were carefully selected for their geographical complementarity and diversity in terms of urban typology, socio-cultural and biodiversity aspects, inclusivity focus, and current and future predicted climatic context. The consortium has ensured access to local sites through (existing) collaboration with landowners and key local actors.

The five demo cases aim to showcase how a diversity of NBS, which are integrated with NEB, are essential for their lasting success and the creation of resilient neighborhoods. While the actual NBS are different and unique in each case, all demonstrations will follow a set of common principles.

Background

Globally, the built environment contributes to exploitation of natural resources, the pollution of air, water and soil, biodiversity decline, and ultimately climate change. However, the built environment and its stakeholders also hold the solutions to limit, and reverse, these impacts through new innovations that drive societal changes and envision new ways of living.

When designed and implemented well, Nature Based Solutions (NBS) can support biodiversity, local and regional ecology by improving air, soil and water quality and sequestering carbon, in effect playing its part in mitigating climate change.

In addition to this, a closer connection to nature also supports human health and well-being, climate adaptation and resilience (e.g., reduced urban heat island effect, flood prevention etc.).

But in reality, many NBS fail to maximise these benefits or do not work over time, exacerbated by a lack of community involvement. Moreover, not all people have equivalent access to NBS to benefit from them equally, and especially diverse groups (youth, older people, immigrants, women, disabled people) may also face socioeconomic marginalisation, spatial segregation, or urban decay.

Goal

Our project aims to re-imagine and accelerate new living futures and ‘next practices’ across Europe by co-creating five diverse NBS demonstration cases across Europe (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Romania, UK) that are inclusive, beautiful and sustainable, the three key pillars of the New European Bauhaus (NEB).

The project will demonstrate the co-benefits of NBS through inclusive design solutions and innovative processes, methods, care and management of NBS. This collective project aims to change mindsets, affect policy and to accelerate and scale-up NBS solutions in different contexts locally and across Europe.

It will do so by bringing biodiversity and people diversity together at all levels,
(i.e. diverse communities, artists and designers, ecologists, researchers, policy-makers, other stakeholders in Eco-Social Living Labs and through Arts Conversations) and thereby reimagining new (biodiverse, social, cultural and ecological) futures.

The project and demo cases are co-created and co-led by a collective of interdisciplinary researchers, ecologists, artists and designers, community and volunteering organisations, SMEs and cities.