Exploring different framings of nature-based solutions with respect to governance, and citizen participation, beneficiaries, and quality of life outcomes

Cities are increasingly looking to nature-based solutions to not only tackle climate change, and biodiversity loss, reconnect people with nature but also make just transitions to sustainability. However, some scholars argue that normative framings that drive the implementation of NBS continue to reinforce hegemonism and neoliberalise nature. Furthermore, while cities increasingly foreground climate adaptation and green growth actions in social and economic inequality considerations, the drive for growth and profit can lead to issues of inequality being side-stepped or even reinforced. Consequently, normative framings can lead to uneven distribution of the benefits of NBS, but also, opportunities to engage in fair and just participatory processes are missed. This has led to calls for the framing of NBS to be revised to support social change by moving away from hegemonic framings to focus on a more inclusive, collaborative, and interconnected framework. However, few papers have examined how the pattern of interaction between governance, and participatory engagement relates to equitable, democratic and diversity considerations that are needed to transition to just cities through NBS and how this pattern relates to the beneficiaries of NBS and the quality of life outcomes in cities. Drawing on statistical relational methods to analyse data published in the Urban Audit and Urban Nature Atlas, this paper unpacks the interplay between different types of governance, participation and citizen involvement, and the beneficiaries of NBS and relate to different social and economic conditions that influence quality of life in cities. •City-citizen interactions that characterise NBS hinder transitions to just cities.•Governance and management of NBS frequently exclude disadvantaged groups.•Quality of life outcomes rarely relate to city-citizen interactions.•Just NBS must discourage socially exclusive governance processes.