The fourteenth EPRC webinar of 2021, and the second of this Autumn/Winter semester, was held November 3rd (11:00 – 12:00 UK) over Zoom. Dr. Linjun Xie, Assistant Professor at University of Nottingham Ningbo (China), presented on the topic “Mainstreaming Nature-based Solutions for Climate and Biodiversity Governance in Cities”.
Xie argued that there have been widespread calls to mainstream nature-based solutions (NBS) – a form of socio-ecological-technical innovation – to address urban sustainable development concerns, especially for climate change and, increasingly, for biodiversity loss. However, what mainstreaming means, and how sustainability-oriented innovations like NBS can be mainstreamed to benefit multiple agendas, remains underexplored.
Xie and her fellow researchers have drawn insights from sustainability transitions and urban experimentation and have reasoned that mainstreaming sustainable innovations requires both forms of normalisation and the retention of the distinction of innovations. Mainstreaming NBS thus relies on identifying and acting on key interventions – stepping stones – that facilitate the embeddedness and maintenance of NBS across urban infrastructure regimes. Based on case studies of existing European practices, the authors identify pivotal stepping stones and promising pathways for mainstreaming NBS for climate and biodiversity governance, and explore what this means for addressing both agendas simultaneously.
Dr. Linjun Xie is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture and Built Environment at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. She has a background in urban planning and her interdisciplinary research focuses on urban sustainability transitions and environmental governance. Her work explores urban sustainability innovations such as eco-city, smart-city, and nature-based solutions, especially in China and Europe. She has published a number of papers in journals on urban and environmental studies, including Environmental Science & Policy, Political Geography, Journal of Urban Technology, Journal of Cleaner Production, and Environmental and Planning E: Nature and Space.
You can view the recording of the webinar on YouTube by clicking here.
Our next webinar will take place Wednesday November 24th, when Sébastien Bourdin, Professor at EM Normandy Business School, will present on the “EU Cohesion Policy in France”.
Future EPRC webinars will delve on topics of sustainability, regional policy and development. Please see the present schedule for this year here.
If you would like to attend, watch out for updates and registrations by following @eprc_eu on Twitter, or register for our webinar mailing list through marie.c.devine@strath.ac.uk.