Enabling justice for nature-based solutions in real estate development

Abstract

Nature-based solutions (NBS) have emerged as crucial and promising interventions to realize resilient, sustainable, and climate-adaptive cities. One key approach is integrating them into real estate development. While real estate-related NBS – like green roofs, walls, car parks and pocket parks – are applauded for their benefits in terms of quality of life and real estate value, they are also at the core of justice concerns. If left unaddressed, NBS can lead to green gentrification and spark a wider justice discussion on distributional, procedural, recognition, and ecological justice. In this paper, we explore how to shift from a ‘win-lose’ to a ‘just’ implementation of NBS in real estate, by collecting qualitative data from Dutch real estate and NBS practitioners on projects that aimed for NBS integration into real estate while attending to (dimensions of) justice. We identify fifteen enablers that support ‘just’ real estate-related NBS, clustered under four themes (government support, knowledge, community engagement and organizational management). Based on these findings, we propose managerial implications for ‘just’ NBS integration in real estate and avenues for further NBS research.