Creative Roads Towards Urban Nature-based Solutions

Abstract

Urban developments in the Netherlands are becoming increasingly complex due to the extensive and often competing programs of requirements that must be met within limited urban spaces (Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving, 2021). Traditional solutions often fall short in balancing these priorities. However, Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) hold promise as part of a "cheat code" by solving different issues within one solution, providing co-benefits (Raymond et al., 2017). NbS studies have largely focused on building a coherent research field through an interdisciplinary and holistic perspective. This has resulted in more technical static frameworks, leaving challenges of dealing with complexities, uncertainties, adaptive management, and private-sector involvement unaddressed. However, studies have given less attention to uncovering more creative dynamic frameworks to navigate these complexities and uncertainties and to respond adaptively to integrate NbS. Project developers, who need to compete against their competitors, may provide insights into these more creative frameworks. They inherently need to respond adaptively to the changing market and innovate to keep their position and achieve their business case. Therefore, it is proposed that organizing and fostering creativity is crucial for developing better and more Nature-based Solutions (NbS). Consequently, this research explores the following research question:

“How can project developers organize creativity to integrate NbS into their urban development projects?”

This question focuses on the characteristics, behavior, and strategies of the project developer as an individual contributing to integrating better and more NbS. The project developer collaborates with their project collective and is supported by their development company. This research aims to generate new theories about how the project developer organizes creativity in the form of strategies. Therefore, an explorative approach is necessary to uncover social perspectives, which can be effectively achieved through a qualitative study.

This research involves both theoretical and empirical research, including literature and a holistic multiple-case study. Four cases on different scales have been analyzed. These cases were compared with a cross-case analysis to indicate the important NbS barriers and success factors that are connected to organizing creativity. Moreover, data synthesis has been performed to capture the strategies for organizing creativity.

The main findings present the 4C model for and with NbS. This model encompasses four strategies for organizing creativity including Composing, Convincing, Conducting, and Contemplating, and can be performed on two levels. The first level consists of proactive strategies, building routines, while the second level uncovers reactive strategies, building habits. By performing strategies on both levels, the project developer can make sure to respond adaptively to current situations while also planning for the future, enabling NbS success factors and positive creative situations. In this way, the project developer can organize creativity to integrate NbS into their urban development, composing the right environment for learning and change, convincing actors to learn and change, conducting change by monitoring and iterating, and contemplating to spot new needs for change.