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JUSTNature Co-Greening

Tannya Pico

Created on August 19, 2025

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Transcript

Understanding

Setting up

Planning

Co-Greening

Implementing

A handbook for equitable and collaborative urban greening

Toolkit

Start

1. Understand

2. Set up

3. Plan

4. Implenment

This is the first step in making your NbS a reality—turning general ideas from your roadmp into one or more specific projects that are both feasible (can be done) and viable (likely to work well and last over time). This process includes planning which solution(s) to adopt, for what purpose, and sometimes even where they will be located – always considering NbS potentialities and complexities as well as local needs and desires. It also involves working out the actual design of the NbS— how it will be shaped and function, and what it will look like. Of course, you’re not expected to do this alone—this should be a shared decision made together with your key partners and stakeholders, in the spirit of just co-governance. This phase usually will include:

Toolkit

1. Understand

2. Set up

3. Plan

4. Implenment

Toolkit

Figure 1: JUSTNature City Practice Labs and their nature-based interventions.

1. Understand

2. Set up

1.1 What happens in this phase and what does it mean for co-governance?

1.1 What happens in this phase and what does it mean for co-governance?

This is the first step in making your NbS a reality—turning general ideas from your roadmp into one or more specific projects that are both feasible (can be done) and viable (likely to work well and last over time). This process includes planning which solution(s) to adopt, for what purpose, and sometimes even where they will be located – always considering NbS potentialities and complexities as well as local needs and desires. It also involves working out the actual design of the NbS— how it will be shaped and function, and what it will look like. Of course, you’re not expected to do this alone—this should be a shared decision made together with your key partners and stakeholders, in the spirit of just co-governance. This phase usually will include:

3. Plan

4. Implenment

Toolkit

WHY USE THIS HANDBOOK AND TRAINING TOOLKIT?

1. Understand

Imagine you’re a municipal project manager in the planning department, starting a new project to redesign a vacant piece of land, turning it into a park. You’ve worked on major landscape redesigns before and are leading a team that has all the technical expertise, but you now have a new mandate: to engage the local community in the design process, including reaching out to residents who are not usually engaged. The process should be a collaborative one, and address aspects of social and environmental justice. This was the situation that many of our team, representing seven European cities, faced when the JUSTNature project began in late 2021. Making urban greening more just and more collaborative has many benefits, but it’s not always obvious how to put these big concepts into practice. Four years on, we’ve created this handbook and training toolkit to share our experience with people working towards similar aims. We'll guide you to:

  1. reflect on your current starting point when it comes to just, collaborative governance and what it means in relation to NbS,
  2. define clear, place-based objectives that promote a just local environment,
  3. assess available resources and risks,
  4. select the right tools to take action, and
  5. set up mechanisms to monitor and evaluate progress.
Let’s get started!

2. Set up

3. Plan

4. Implenment

Toolkit

1. Understand

WHY COLLABORATIVE GOVERNANCE?

Before starting your project, you need to set up a collaborative environment that unites key actors and creates the conditions for joint work. While it’s possible to develop your project alone or within a single department, one which is developed collaboratively allows you to coherently articulate a shared vision and align long-term goal(s). A collaborative approach already at this early stage can serve as a basis for effective communication among all actors involved, helping everyone understand and explain why certain actions are needed.

2. Set up

3. Plan

Before starting your project, you need to set up a collaborative environment that unites key actors and creates the conditions for joint work. While it’s possible to develop your project alone or within a single department, one which is developed collaboratively allows you to coherently articulate a shared vision and align long-term goal(s). A collaborative approach already at this early stage can serve as a basis for effective communication among all actors involved, helping everyone understand and explain why certain actions are needed.

4. Implenment

Toolkit

WHY USE THIS HANDBOOK AND TRAINING TOOLKIT?

1. Understand

2. Set up

Now that your change pathway (or roadmap) is in place, this section supports you through its realisation. It shares real-life examples from the JUSTNature cities, across the phases of spatial planning and design; implementation; and management.

3. Plan

4. Implenment

Toolkit

WHY USE THIS HANDBOOK AND TRAINING TOOLKIT?

1. Understand

Imagine you’re a municipal project manager in the planning department, starting a new project to redesign a vacant piece of land, turning it into a park. You’ve worked on major landscape redesigns before and are leading a team that has all the technical expertise, but you now have a new mandate: to engage the local community in the design process, including reaching out to residents who are not usually engaged. The process should be a collaborative one, and address aspects of social and environmental justice. This was the situation that many of our team, representing seven European cities, faced when the JUSTNature project began in late 2021. Making urban greening more just and more collaborative has many benefits, but it’s not always obvious how to put these big concepts into practice. Four years on, we’ve created this handbook and training toolkit to share our experience with people working towards similar aims. We'll guide you to:

  1. reflect on your current starting point when it comes to just, collaborative governance and what it means in relation to NbS,
  2. define clear, place-based objectives that promote a just local environment,
  3. assess available resources and risks,
  4. select the right tools to take action, and
  5. set up mechanisms to monitor and evaluate progress.
Let’s get started!

2. Set up

3. Plan

4. Implenment

Toolkit

1. Understand

Introduction

This handbook originates from the practice-based research project JUSTNature, which addressed the intersection of urban nature-based solutions (NbS) and justice in seven European cities, between 2021 and 2026. As part of this project, municipal practitioners were supported by a research team to consider not only the potential positive environmental impacts of local greening interventions, but also their justice implications. Embedded in “city practice labs”, local project teams worked to engage participants throughout the design, implementation and management of these interventions. We introduced the concept of collaborative governance to raise the ambition – beyond passive forms of participation that focus on information-giving or target the usual suspects, toward more inclusive efforts to engage vulnerable and minority groups. The pages of this handbook document the fruits of our efforts. The handbook is intended for municipal staff or supporting research teams looking to make urban greening more collaborative and equitable.

2. Set up

3. Plan

4. Implenment

Toolkit

1. Understand

Index

3. Develop a roadmap towards just collaborative governance

1. Understand just collaborative governance

2. Set up

2. Set up your collaborative environment

4. Implement your roadmap

3. Plan

Toolkit

  1. Stakeholder Mapping Database
  2. Digital Whiteboard for Targeted Communication with Stakeholders
  3. Guide to Making Objectives SMART
  4. Digital Whiteboard to Create a Theory of Change
  5. Indicator Cards

6. Learning Log Template7. Guide to Running a Local Stakeholder Workshop8. NbS Evaluation Matrix9 . Nature-Building Community Design Kit10. Guide to Running a Resource Mapping Workshop

4. Implenment

NOTE: This interactive handbook is based on D7.4, “Co-Greening: A Handbook for Equitable and Collaborative Urban Greening”. Find the full version below.

Link

Toolkit

1. Understand

2. Set up

PART 1: UNDERSTAND JUST COLLABORATIVE GOVERNANCE

3. Plan

4. Implenment

Toolkit

1. Understand

SO, WHAT IS CO-GOVERNANCE EXACTLY?

2. Set up

3. Plan

We defined co-governance as: The process of various actors across the public, civil society and private domains working together to formulate, promote and achieve shared objectives for positively transforming the urban environment in the context of a broader shift towards a just and sustainable future, through the planning, design, implementation and management of Nature-based interventions.

We defined co-governance as: The process of various actors across the public, civil society and private domains working together to formulate, promote and achieve shared objectives for positively transforming the urban environment in the context of a broader shift towards a just and sustainable future, through the planning, design, implementation and management of Nature-based interventions.

4. Implenment

Toolkit

1. Understand

In practice, collaborative governance involves:

2. Set up

Working across departments to bring together diverse areas of expertise, fostering the multifunctionality and benefits of NbS, as well as their successful planning, design, implementation, and management. Engaging and working for and with the local community and broader civil society to bring in their knowledge, needs, and aspirations, ensuring a place-based and socially responsive approach. Involving academia and the private sector to bring in scientific knowledge, innovation, and diverse resources, building cross-sectoral partnerships that can strengthen effectiveness and long-term impact.

What is and what is not Co-governance?

3. Plan

4. Implenment

Toolkit

1. Understand

WHY COLLABORATE?

2. Set up

3. Plan

WHAT MAKES COLLABORATIVE GOVERNANCE ‘JUST’?

4. Implenment

Toolkit

Understanding

Who to engage?

Below is a sample of actors you might involve and why. Naturally, the relevance and feasibility of involving each actor will vary depending on your specific context. Use this as a guide to reflect on who should be involved in your case—even if they are not listed here.

Setting up

LOCAL REPRESENTATIVES

ACADEMIA AND EDUCATION

LOCAL MUNICIPALITY

Planning

Use this side of the card to provide more information about a topic. Focus on one concept. Make learning and communication more efficient.

Use this side of the card to provide more information about a topic. Focus on one concept. Make learning and communication more efficient.

Use this side of the card to provide more information about a topic. Focus on one concept. Make learning and communication more efficient.

Use this side of the card to provide more information about a topic. Focus on one concept. Make learning and communication more efficient.

INDIVIDUAL COMMUNITY MEMBERS

SMES AND START UPS

REGIONAL GOVERNMENT

NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

AT RISK AND VULNERABLE GROUPS

NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

Title

Title

Title

Title

Implementing

RESEARCH & THIRD SECTOR

PRIVATE SECTOR

PUBLIC SECTOR

CIVIL SOCIETY

Write a brief description here

Write a brief description here

Write a brief description here

Write a brief description here

Toolkit

1. Understand

Principles

2. Set up

Empowering

Legitimate

3. Plan

4. Implenment

Collaborative

Adaptive

Responsive

Toolkit

1. Understand

2. Set up

PART 2: SETTING UP YOUR COLLABORATIVE ENVIRONMENT

3. Plan

4. Implement

Toolkit

1. Understand

2. Set up

Before starting your project, you need to set up a collaborative environment that unites key actors and creates the conditions for joint work. While it’s possible to develop your project alone or within a single department, one which is developed collaboratively allows you to coherently articulate a shared vision and align long-term goal(s). A collaborative approach already at this early stage can serve as a basis for effective communication among all actors involved, helping everyone understand and explain why certain actions are needed.

3. Plan

4. Implement

Toolkit

1. Understand

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

2. Set up

1 HOW TO IDENTIFY KEY ACTORS?

One of the most crucial points of enabling NbS co-governance is to understand who should be involved. Keep in mind the full cycle of developing an NbS: planning and design, implementation, and operation (including maintenance, activation, and management). Consider who should be engaged now to shape the project together with you. You can use the types of actors listed in (see Part 1), together with the guiding questions below, to help you

3. Plan

4. Implement

Title

Title

1.1 Internal Actors

1.2 External Actors

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Subtitle

Subtitle

(beyond municipality)

(within municipality)

Toolkit

2 HOW TO ENGAGE?

Understanding

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

Now that you’ve identified the people who should be involved in the project, it’s time to act: to start building collaborations and establish a working team. Think of this as a long-term effort — not only for developing your project, but also as a group that will move together through the entire NbS development cycle, with engagement levels adjusted according to each project phase.

Setting up

Planning

2.1 How to establish a cross-departmental working team

Title

Title

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Use this side to give more information about a topic.

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Subtitle

Subtitle

Implementing

The working group should be your core support and go-to resource throughout the project and as such, always consult them regarding the people involved, the steps you are taking and your plans, to ensure you don't miss anything. Make sure to create room for your colleagues to bring in their needs and objectives and to adapt your project plan accordingly.

1/4

4/4

2/4

3/4

TOOL 1: Stakeholder Mapping Database

Toolkit

10

3 ENGAGING AND WORKING WITH EXTERNAL ACTORS

1. Understand

Finally, the time for external collaborations has arrived!Once all relevant groups of external actors have been identified, you should start approaching them. Click below for tips:

Examples of activities to engage the local community include:

2. Set up

What barriers might you face?

3. Plan

Title

Engaging and working with external actors

Use this side to give more information about a topic.

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Subtitle

4. Implement

1/3

2/3

3/3

TOOL 4: Digital Whiteboard to create a Theory of Change

Toolkit

11

1.3 Collect insights and provide feedback

1.3 Collect insights and provide feedback

1. Understand

2. Set up

PART 3: DEVELOPING A ROADMAP TOWARDS JUST COLLABORATIVE GOVERNANCE

3. Plan

4. Implement

Toolkit

1. Understand

2. Set up

It’s now time to reflect on your own local context. This part will guide you in developing a strategic roadmap (or a “change pathway”) to create NbS that support collaborative and equitable processes and outcomes.In JUSTNature, we used the ‘Theory of Change’ approach to develop a roadmap in each city, including objectives for your NbS, actions and indicators of progress – with a focus specifically on co-governance.

3. Plan

4. Implement

Toolkit

1. Understand

1. What is Theory of Change?

2. Set up

Put simply, a Theory of Change is an explanation of how a group expects to reach a common goal1. Theory of Change is a widely accepted methodology for planning strategic transformation and has been adopted in many project-related environments, including other European Commission-funded studies related to NbS2. The European Commission’s Handbook for NbS Assessment outlines a simplified overview of the components of a Theory of Change, adapted from the CLEVER Cities project.

3. Plan

4. Implement

Toolkit

1. Understand

2 STEPS TO DEVELOP A ROADMAP, BASED ON THEORY OF CHANGE

There are different methods for developing a Theory of Change, and to develop a full change pathway can demand a large amount of effort and resources. This will particularly be the case if you start early, engage a wide group of participants, and regularly check in on and update your roadmap. In JUSTNature, we conducted a ‘mini’ Theory of Change process: a short-form exercise involving two group working sessions to introduce the concept and develop draft roadmaps, supported with a digital whiteboard for each city team to work on further. This was at a stage that many project parameters had already been defined. In our experience, the earlier you start and the more attention you give your roadmap, the more likely you are to see results. Regardless of which approach you take, the steps are as follows

2. Set up

3. Plan

Define your goal for your project

Prioritise actions

Working backwards

Define clear objectives

Define actions

Define ways of monitoring

4. Implement

The result of this process is a roadmap that visually describes your Theory of Change (see Figure 5). To get there, let’s go step by step through the process.

Toolkit

1. Understand

Define your goal

  • What problem or need do you want to address?
  • Why is this issue important in your context (e.g., social, environmental, governance)?
  • How does it relate to just, collaborative governance?
  • What change or impact do you want to create?
  • How does your team or department currently collaborate with civil society and local stakeholders in the planning and implementation of NbS?
  • If you have already identified a site or a neighbourhood for your project, do you know which groups are vulnerable or might have less of a voice in planning and development in that location?
  • In your projects normally, how do you address the needs, interests, and values of diverse groups, including those who are vulnerable or less powerful?
  • How does your team or department support and recognise citizen-led (bottom-up) initiatives

Most likely you are coming to this with some ideas already about what you are working towards and assume that everyone else has the same purpose in mind – but this is not always the case. To make sure everyone is on the same page, it’s useful to begin with a session where the long-term goal is discussed and defined as a group. Before you define your goal, start with asking:

2. Set up

3. Plan

4. Implement

Toolkit

1. Understand

2. Set up

3. Plan

4. Implement

Toolkit

Figure 6: Schematic roadmap (or change pathway).

Understanding

TOOL 3: Guide to Making Objectives SMART

Understanding

Define your goal

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

To help clarify your team or department’s ‘baseline’ for just, collaborative governance of NbS, and what you might be able to improve, start with this quick checklist

Setting up

Setting up

  • Does your team or department normally collaborate with civil society and local stakeholders in developing projects?
  • Does your team or department normally identify groups that are vulnerable or have less of a voice in the locations where you develop projects?
  • Does your team or department have ways to address the needs, interests and values of diverse groups, especially those who are vulnerable or less powerful?
  • Does your team or department support citizen-led (bottom-up) initiatives? What mechanisms or practices are in place to ensure that decision-making processes are fair, transparent, and inclusive, allowing all voices to be heard and influence outcomes?
  • How does your municipality identify and address power imbalances to promote more equitable participation in NbS governance?

Planning

Implementing

If you answered ‘no’ or ‘I don’t know’ to any of the questions above, then you already have a clear opportunity to make your current reality, i.e. existing ways of working, more just and collaborative! If you answered yes’ to all, you would need to dig a bit deeper, e.g. asking how your team currently works with others, especially less powerful actors, and what can be improved.

Toolkit

16

Understanding

Understanding

Define clear objectives

The next step is to define objectives related to your goal. Each objective should address a particular change you want to make to the existing situation around the co-governance of NbS, which needs to be defined as a problem or ‘reality statement’ (see Figure 5).

Setting up

Setting up

SMART stands for:

  • Specific – Make your objective as specific and exact as possible, by defining what impact to expect, for whom you want to have a change, and who should be involved in making this change.
  • Measurable – Make sure that your objective represents a progress and/or success that can be tracked over-time. This can be done based on certain indicators, metrics, or other forms of monitoring (see part Step 6).
  • Achievable – Make sure that you can realistically reach the objective with the timeframe and resources available.
  • Relevant – Your objective should be aligned with the reality you want to change and existing local initiatives.
  • Time-bound – Establish your objective within a realistic time, adeadline to achieve it, indicating the urgency and accountability behind it.

Planning

Implementing

Figure 7: Dos and Don’ts of SMART Objectives.

Toolkit

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

Defining a SMART objective at the beginning can be challenging, and you may need to revisit it at least once. Just make sure you clearly and specifically state what you want to achieve, how you will know it has been achieved, and by when.

17

Understanding

Outline the necessary outcomes toward your goal

Understanding

The next step is to work backwards from your goal and objectives to identify all the necessary outcomes or building blocks that would logically need to happen along the way. This approach is sometimes called 'back-casting'. Instead of starting from where you are now, you begin with the future you want and ask:

  • “What needs to be in place for this objective to become a reality?”
  • “What would need to happen just before that?”
  • and “What would need to happen before that?”
You continue this process until you arrive back at your current situation. This creates a logical sequence of steps that will guide your next steps, while ensuring everything stays aligned with your ultimate objectives and goal. When listing outcomes, use nouns or noun phrases instead of verbs. This helps you describe conditions, systems, or achievements - not activities.

Setting up

Setting up

Planning

Figure 8: How to define your Outcomes

Using nouns helps you focus on what the change looks like, instead of what actions you’ll take, which comes next.To help you frame outcomes as a state or condition (not an action), try starting your outcome statements with:

  • “There is…” as in “There is stronger collaboration between city departments and local organisations”.
  • “We have…” as in “We have built community trust and ownership in local NbS”.

Implementing

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

Toolkit

18

1. Understand

Define actions to reach each outcome

Now that you have identified the necessary outcomes toward your goal, the next step is to define the specific actions you can take to help bring each of them about. Unlike outcomes, actions should describe what you will do, not what should exist. This means using verbs, not nouns. Actions are about your contribution to change.Imagine you’re writing a to-do list. For example:

  • Organise stakeholder meetings
  • Develop a cross-departmental coordination plan
  • Facilitate co-creation workshops
  • Advocate for policy change
  • Train staff in inclusive participation methods
  • Draft a shared vision statement
Here, don’t hold back — bring all possible actions to the table to fully explore what needs to be done. Don’t forget to write down who will lead each action!

2. Set up

3. Plan

4. Implement

TOOL 4: Digital Whiteboard to create a Theory of Change

Toolkit

1. Understand

A Theory of Change for one objective could look like this

2. Set up

3. Plan

4. Implement

TOOL 4: Digital Whiteboard to create a Theory of Change

Toolkit

Understanding

Understanding

Prioritise your actions

If you’ve really used your imagination, at this point you probably have more actions than you can handle. It’s a good idea to review the most relevant for achieving your objectives and those that fall within your strongest capacity to influence or act upon. These prioritised actions will serve as your starting point for implementation. You may find it helpful to use a matrix that considers feasibility and impact.

It might also help to focus on actions that are feasible within the scope and timeline of your project. Be ambitious but stay realistic about your context and constraints — this will help you stay motivated and avoid frustration along the way.

Setting up

Setting up

Planning

TOOL 8: NbS Evaluation Matrix

Implementing

Toolkit

20

Understanding

Understanding

Define ways to track your progress

Lastly, you should begin considering how to measure and monitor your progress to ensure that your efforts toward just, co-governance of NbS remain on track and achieve their intended outcomes — and ultimately, your objectives. Monitoring helps you understand what is working well, notice where challenges arise, and identify where and how to adjust your approach over time Define how you will evaluate your outcomes Look at your roadmap, think of the actions that are to come and how you could measure their effectiveness. By measure, we mean identifying if and how your actions are making progress — through indicators, observations, feedback, or other forms of evidence that demonstrate progress toward your objectives. We've created three resources for monitoring and evaluating your progress:

presented in the form of a card deck, with each card representing one indicator. These cards are organized according to justice principles and serve as examples of how collaborative governance and justice can be assessed;

Title

Use this side to give more information about a topic.

Setting up

Setting up

List of indicators

Subtitle

Planning

a structured document to record planned, ongoing, and completed activities, reflecting on how they went, what was learned, what worked well, the challenges faced, and what could be improved throughout your activity and project.

Title

Use this side to give more information about a topic.

Learning log

Subtitle

Implementing

TOOL 5: Indicator Cards TOOL 6: Learning Log Template TOOL 7: Guide to Running a Local Stakeholder Workshop

What's special about monitoring co-governance?

a guide to conducting interviews, focus groups and surveys, available on Zenodo here.

Title

Use this side to give more information about a topic.

Method guide

Subtitle

Toolkit

21

1. Understand

Understanding

Setting up

2. Set up

PART 4: IMPLEMENTING YOUR ROADMAP

3. Plan

4. Implement

Toolkit

1. Understand

Understanding

Setting up

2. Set up

Now that your change pathway (or roadmap) is in place, this section supports you through its realisation. It shares real-life examples from the JUSTNature cities, across the phases of spatial planning and design; implementation; and management.

3. Plan

4. Implement

Toolkit

1. Understand

Understanding

1.1 What happens in this phase and what does it mean for co-governance?

Improves communicationon any topic.

Improves communicationon any topic.

Setting up

2. Set up

Connects with your audience...

Improves communicationon any topic.

3. Plan

And makes them a part of the message.

Improves communicationon any topic.

4. Implement

Toolkit

1. Understand

1 SPATIAL PLANNING AND DESIGN

Understanding

Of course, you’re not expected to do this alone—this should be a shared decision made together with your key partners and stakeholders, in the spirit of just co-governance. This phase usually will include:

Setting up

2. Set up

1.1 What happens in this phase and what does it mean for co-governance?

of the solution, together with both internal and external stakeholders.

The co-creation and co-design

Title

Use this side to give more information about a topic.

Subtitle

This is the first step in making your NbS a reality—turning general ideas from your roadmp into one or more specific projects that are both feasible (can be done) and viable (likely to work well and last over time). This process includes planning which solution(s) to adopt, for what purpose, and sometimes even where they will be located – always considering NbS potentialities and complexities as well as local needs and desires. It also involves working out the actual design of the NbS— how it will be shaped and function, and what it will look like. Of course, you’re not expected to do this alone—this should be a shared decision made together with your key partners and stakeholders, in the spirit of just co-governance. This phase usually will include:

3. Plan

Collecting insights and providing feedback

to the design and the multi-departmental working team.

Title

Use this side to give more information about a topic.

Subtitle

4. Implement

to all stakeholders involved, to gather any final feedback and ensure transparency and continued engagement. This includes explaining why certain ideas could not be integrated, if that’s the case.

Presenting the final design

Title

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Subtitle

Toolkit

Understanding

1 SPATIAL PLANNING AND DESIGN

Understanding

This is a learning-oriented and circular process, based on feedback, reflection, and collaboration. This will ensure that your NbS is environmentally effective and socially meaningful. In sum, just cogovernance of NbS here can ensure that your NbS: Ultimately, just co-governance in the planning and design phase lays the groundwork for successful implementation and long-term impact of NbS—making them not only greener, but fairer.

Setting up

Setting up

Planning

Avoids reproducing existing inequalities by actively including marginalised groups in shaping the intervention and better distributing local benefits.

Integrates diverse forms of knowledge, from expert to experiential—leading to more creative, context-appropriate, and resilient solutions.

Promotes transparency and accountability, making sure decisions are clear, inclusive, and open to scrutiny or adjustment.

Builds trust among stakeholders, improving cooperation and reducing conflicts or resistance down the line.

Strengthens local capacity and ownership, empowering communities to care for and advocate for the NbS over time.

Reflects local needs and desires, fostering acceptance, satisfaction and stewardship.

Implementing

Toolkit

24

1. Understand

TOOL 7: Guide to Running a Local Stakeholder Workshop

1.2 Co-designing your NbS

Understanding

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

• Priority Setting & Scenario Building – you can bring forward and compare diverse NbS options, discussing their benefits, trade-offs, feasibility, acceptance and opportunities with the group. In this way, you can easily exclude options that are clearly undesirable and understand the main priorities. • Co-design workshops – organise hands-on activities where the group, from the local community to planners and designers, can sketch or model together NbS ideas. This brings ideas directly with technical expertise, and can be facilitated around maps, photographs, or mock-up models.

You might combine one creative activity (like visioning, storytelling, or mapping) with one technical activity (like scenario building or potential site visit) to balance imagination with feasibility. Think also about accessible formats, e.g. an info stands at a local festival, where there is no explicit requirement to participate in an activity or share an opinion. These can be valuable to reach people who lack the time or interest to join a more formal event. In JUSTNature, diferent cities used a mix of co-design workshops, pilot visits, scenario building and drop-in formats.

• Role Playing or Serious Games – simulate decision-making by giving participants different roles than their own, for example, city planner, business owner, resident, etc, and discuss this in relation to the NbS. It can foster participants to look and grasp beyond their perspective, promote creative ideas while accounting for power imbalances in a playful way. • Visit to a potential site – to explore the spatial possibilities with participants, understanding their wishes, areas or functions in need of change, and constraints.

• Participatory Mapping – where you map with the local actors green spaces, challenges and opportunities, capturing local knowledge and identifying priority areas. • Visioning and Storytelling Exercises – this could mean imagining how local actors would like the area to look in 10, 20 or 50 years with NbS, or asking them for personal stories connected with NbS. It can help identify long-term vision and desires from the community and foster creative ideas.

MERANO

LEUVEN

2. Set up

Setting up

This refers to joint efforts with your internal and external stakeholders to define and co-design your NbS. While it often culminates in co-design workshops (though other engagement formats may also be used), it should start with internal discussion in your working group to clarify the project’s scope, technical aspects, and constraints.

This refers to joint efforts with your internal and external stakeholders to define and co-design your NbS. While it often culminates in co-design workshops (though other engagement formats may also be used), it should start with internal discussion in your working group to clarify the project’s scope, technical aspects, and constraints.

This refers to joint efforts with your internal and external stakeholders to define and co-design your NbS. While it often culminates in co-design workshops (though other engagement formats may also be used), it should start with internal discussion in your working group to clarify the project’s scope, technical aspects, and constraints.

This refers to joint efforts with your internal and external stakeholders to define and co-design your NbS. While it often culminates in co-design workshops (though other engagement formats may also be used), it should start with internal discussion in your working group to clarify the project’s scope, technical aspects, and constraints.

This refers to joint efforts with your internal and external stakeholders to define and co-design your NbS. While it often culminates in co-design workshops (though other engagement formats may also be used), it should start with internal discussion in your working group to clarify the project’s scope, technical aspects, and constraints.

Since it can be challenging to catch everyone’s interest, you might need to develop more than one type of activity to achieve your goals and effectively gather input. Some examples are:

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3. Plan

How to make your co-design activities fair and inclusive depends on your context and capabilities. In some cases, it might mean getting everyone together, in others it might be more suitable to run specific events for different target groups. What is crucial is to create a space where all stakeholders feel comfortable speaking and their voices can be captured. It is also important that they understand that this will most likely require more than one activity.

4. Implement

Toolkit

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Understanding

1.3 Collect insights and provide feedback

Understanding

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

Setting up

Now that you have started co-designing your NbS, you need to think about what to do with all the information you are gathering. While this may sound straightforward, several challenges often arise—from small technical issues, such as illegible handwriting, to more complex questions, such as whose needs should be prioritised. To address these challenges in a just way, it helps to structure the process from the beginning. Think about the following: By systematically collecting, prioritising, and feeding back insights, you turn diverse inputs into a clear, productive and fair foundation for the next stages of your NbS.

Setting up

Planning

Systematise your data

Categorise inputs

Clarify criteria for prioritising ideas

TOOL 6: Learning Log Template TOOL 8: NbS Evaluation Matrix

Implementing

Document decisions

Report the decisions to your design team

Communicate decisions and the reasons for them

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1. Understand

2 IMPLEMENTATION PHASE

Understanding

While the spatial planning and design phase is highly important, cogovernance does not have to stop there. In practice, the level of emphasis on each phase can differ depending on the context and project. In our experience, in some cases—like the city of Chania, where a green wall with specific technical requirements was predefined—the co-design phase was more limited in scope, while later phases such as implementation and activation become more critical.

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

Setting up

2. Set up

3. Plan

  • Potential contractors for the building works
  • Representatives of active groups at your intervention site
  • End-users at your intervention site

4. Implement

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2.1 What happens in this phase and why does it matter

2.3 How to enable just co-governance in the implementation phase?

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2.2 Who to involve

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3 MANAGEMENT PHASE

Understanding

The management (or operation) phase is where your earlier investments in planning, design and implementation are tested in practice. This phase offers huge potential for co-governance, because now there is something tangible in place, which is likely to spark a reaction from the community nearby – whether curiosity or irritation! This is a great opportunity to capitalise on interest by engaging the local community in caring for the NbS. In the operation phase, just collaborative governance means that the municipality shares responsibility for maintenance, management, and activation with end users of the space, in ways that should be fair, inclusive, and supportive, not creating a burden for those engaged. This is important because: • Your NbS is likely to flourish if cared for and accepted by its users and less to fall into neglect or vandalism. • Citizens engaged in management and care are likely to feel a sense of ownership, which builds trust in the municipality and improves longterm stewardship. • Partnerships with non-governmental organisations and end users, including vulnerable groups, can help ease the burden on municipal budgets and staff by sharing responsibilities for long-term maintenance. • On the other hand, if spaces are not properly maintained, cared for, and actively used, they risk falling into neglect and even being vandalised, which may mean costs for repairs, re-investment, and reengagement to make the space attractive again. · Engaging locals in the actual maintenance of the NbS can build capacity (e.g. gardening skills) — especially for technically demanding solutions like green roofs and walls.

• Clarify roles Define what the city will do in this phase (e.g. pruning, mowing, heavy maintenance) and what citizens can be responsible for (e.g. watering cleaning, informing about repairs needed). Communicate potential benefits they could get (e.g. organising events, sharing ownership), but also expected workload. This avoids misunderstandings and keeps participation fair. • Link activities to people’s needs Show how participation can be an opportunity that connects to daily challenges. For example, job-seeking graduates in a field related to NbS can gain practical experience for their CV, retirees can build social connections, and families can access safe, engaging spaces for children. • Make participation accessible Consider the access requirements of different target groups (e.g. municipal staff, teachers, kids, local communities etc.) in selecting formats (workshop, tour, online or offline), as well as timing (during the school or working day, after-hours or weekend), and other barriers to participation (e.g. cost). In Leuven, providing childcare during meetings enabled parents, especially mothers, to participate more actively, leading to richer and more diverse discussions. • Provide resources Support participation by offering training, small funds, tools, or meeting spaces. Where possible, cooperate with or support civil society organisations already connected to end user groups, so they can take on coordination roles more effectively. • Recognise contributions Value volunteer efforts visibly. Use signage (e.g. “This park is cared for with the help of…”), certificates, or public acknowledgments. Consider establishing an annual award to celebrate outstanding contributions or titles to recognise roles (e.g. Green Wall Community Manager). • Plan continuity Volunteer engagement often declines over time as life circumstances change. To avoid losing momentum, design models where roles remain in place even if individuals rotate out - for example, by engaging schools, associations, cooperatives or community networks rather than relying solely on individuals. Also, don’t assume that you will find volunteers to undertake maintenance. Make sure you have a back-up plan!

• Municipal department responsible for maintenance, • Local neighbourhood bodies: e.g., district committee, • End users (e.g. people living nearby, or known to have an active role at the site), • Local organisations with strong community ties - such as schools, NGOs, sports and other local clubs, cultural associations, and overall community associations which can mobilise participants and connect harder-to-reach groups, • Local experts (e.g. with gardening skills or biodiversity knowledge to help in training others).

3.1 What happens in this phase and what does it mean for co-governance?

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

Setting up

Setting up

3.2 Who to involve?

Planning

3.3 How to enable just co-governance in the implementation phase?

Implementing

Tool 9: Nature-building Community

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3.3 How to enable just co-governance in the implementation phase?

6. Learning Log Template

6. Learning Log Template

1. Understand

Understanding

Setting up

2. Set up

3.3 How to enable just co-governance in the implementation phase?

3.3 How to enable just co-governance in the implementation phase?

3. Plan

6. Learning Log Template

6. Learning Log Template

4. Implement

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Understanding

PART 5: TOOLKIT

Understanding

1. Stakeholder Mapping Database

2. Digital Whiteboard for Targeted Communication with Stakeholders

Setting up

Setting up

3. Guide to Making Objectives SMART

4. Digital Whiteboard to Create a Theory of Change

Planning

5. Indicator Cards

6. Learning Log Template

7. Guide to Running a Local Stakeholder Workshop

Implementing

8. NbS Evaluation Matrix

9. Nature-Building Community Design Kit

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10. Guide to Running a Resource Mapping Workshop

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Evaluate progress in this phase by, for example, setting up regular meetings or check-ins with citizen groups to review what works, adapt responsibilities, and address challenges. Use simple tools like surveys, feedback boards, or digital channels to keep communication open.

Adaptive

  • Be open to listening to different kinds of knowledge and adjust plans when needed. NbS are natural solutions that change over time; why shouldn’t their governance also be?

Digitise notes and feedback as soon as possible after meetings or events, and use shared templates or software (e.g., spreadsheets, transcription tools, or survey platforms) to avoid losing meaning due to poor handwriting or fragmented documentation. Ensure to distinguish between ideas coming from your identified vulnerable group(s), and those coming from groups that might be more dominant.

TOOL 3 GUIDE TO MAKING OBJECTIVES SMART

It’s important that your objective(s) are defined clearly and precisely, as otherwise it will be hard to work out what should be done to reach them and how to know if it works (also see Digital whiteboard to create a Theory of Change). The steps and checklist here will help check whether your objective(s) are fit for purpose or need some refining.

AUTHORS: ELEANOR CHAPMAN (TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH)

WHAT IT IS An overview of practical steps to help review one or more existing objectives that you have defined for your project, with a view to making them SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound). The steps are accompanied by a checklist for each SMART criterion, in the form of guiding questions that can be used to direct a critical reflection individually or in a group. PURPOSE Defining objectives is common to a project setting and probably nothing new to you. Some project teams are handed an objective to work with, while others have more flexibility to work this out together. Either way, doing a critical review of your objective(s) has three key benefits: WHEN TO APPLY IT

  • Early in your project development, after setting up your collaborative environment, and before the spatial planning and design phase.
  • Ideally as part of developing a roadmap for your project.

If used in a group setting, these materials can help clarify expectations in your project team, and make sure everyone understands (and ideally supports) what you’re working towards.

Once you have SMART objectives, you’ll be in a better position to communicate about what you’re doing to other colleagues and potential partners.

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TIP: Reflect on the different realities of your key stakeholders. Brainstorming and writing down as many ideas as you can think of can help expand the reality statement you wrote down earlier to also reflect their challenges. This helps to come up with objectives that address local challenges that are relevant, also beyond the project, helping motivate and mobilise other actors to support you. If you have not yet engaged other actors, we really recommend doing so here, as this can drive the formulation of common objectives and foster the development of more meaningful actions later on. Clear and precise objectives are crucial, as otherwise it will be hard to work out what should be done to reach them and how to know if you are successful. To help make your objectives as useful as possible, we recommend a critical review with colleagues based on the SMART objectives framework. You’ll find a worksheet to guide these discussions in the Toolkit.

TOOL 9 NATURE-BUILDING COMMUNITY DESIGN KIT

AUTHORS: VIKTOR BUKOVSKI (ABUD - ADVANCED BUILDING AND URBAN DESIGN)

WHAT IT IS The Nature-building community (NbC) design kit is a list of design questions for the earliest stages of creating autonomous groups who, in partnership with property owners, the municipality, and other relevant stakeholders, can reliably co-develop and co- maintain urban ecosystems. PURPOSE

  • Guiding a group of local volunteers and other community members on how to become competent and organized partners to renature cities
  • Help turning early community enthusiasm into concrete action to create and maintain NbS.
  • Overcome typical risks and convincing property owners, including the municipality on the viability of local community partnership.
  • Supporting creating strong advocacy groups who would have a say in how to renature cities.
WHEN TO APPLY IT
  • As soon as there is a core group of locals interested in collaborating, volunteering, creating or maintaining urban ecosystems in their area.
  • It is more important to use it at the early stages of community development, irrespective of the stages of the physical development of the NbS.
  • It can also be used to build capacity in existing neighbourhood organizations.

TOOL 2 DIGITAL WHITEBOARD FOR TARGETED COMMUNICATION WITH STAKEHOLDERS

AUTHORS: EDWARD DUCA, EMMA CLARKE AND KAREN FIORINI (UNIVERSITY OF MALTA)

WHAT IT IS This digital whiteboard helps you define and analyse your audiences, identify communication gaps, and shape targeted communication plans. Use it to connect NbS benefits with the needs, values and concerns of specific groups, then translate them into dissemination, communication, and engagement activities. PURPOSE

  • Identify priority audiences and understand their motivations, barriers, and expectations.
  • Match NbS benefits (environmental, economic, social, and health-related) with what matters to each group.
  • Choose communication messages, channels, and activities that are relevant and realistic.
  • Build a shared understanding across municipal departments, project partners, and community stakeholders.
WHEN TO APPLY IT
  • After you have developed your first list of stakeholders (See also Stakeholder Mapping Database).
  • Before launching any communication or engagement campaign.
  • During periodic reflections, especially if earlier communication efforts have not reached certain groups.
  • When preparing replication or scaling plans for NbS within or across districts.

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Before making decisions, agree with your working group on transparent criteria, such as feasibility impact, urgency, and benefit to vulnerable groups. Alignment with project goals will also be a major factor, but an adaptive process will ideally also remain open to emerging needs and interests that may not have been known earlier on. Consider also what to do if you encounter conflicting ideas among the stakeholder groups and who to prioritise. How to do this depends highly on your context and focus, but you can explore with quotas (e.g., ensuring that vulnerable groups’ needs are always reflected), weighted scoring systems (e.g., giving more weight to feasibility or longterm impact), or percentage-based representation (e.g., balancing community, technical, and political inputs proportionally). This can be decided with your interdepartmental group, or even with your external stakeholders. Remember that just co-governance of NbS does not mean satisfying every interest, but striving for fairness, inclusion, and transparency in collective decisions.

If co-governance is only based on techno-efficiency arguments, involving non-state actors in traditionally government-led fields of action may only serve economic growth, rather than the public interest. In contrast, co-governance in pursuit of transformation for the common good supports not only better technical outcomes and targeted use of resources, but also has potential to further democratise the decision-making process. That’s why the principle of empowerment underpins our concept of co-governance: equipping less powerful individual actors with the agency to assert their interests. This demands a dynamic, evolving process of deliberation (beyond communication) in which public, private and civil society actors are afforded meaningful opportunities to create and share knowledge, to challenge existing ideas and to proportionally influence outcomes.

TOOL 5 INDICATOR CARDS

AUTHORS: BEATRIZ KAUARK FONTES (TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH) AND TANNYA PICO (INSTITUTE FOR URBAN EXCELLENCE)

WHAT IT IS These cards or reference sheets describe specific indicators for co-governing NbS for quantitative and/or qualitative measurement of your progress. Each card focuses on one indicator and provides key steps to collect and interpret data. PURPOSE These cards can help make monitoring and evaluation simpler and more consistent, especially across multiple teams or cities. They can help you explain indicators to others quickly (for example, each card can be printed or displayed in workshops) and support participatory monitoring – involving other actors in the monitoring of your NbS co-governance, as stakeholders can help select and interpret the indicators together. WHEN TO APPLY IT Use your Indicator Cards as soon as you have identified your objectives and activities. This allows you to plan from the beginning how you will measure and track your progress, ensuring that your monitoring aligns with your goals from the start. .

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Group ideas and needs into themes (e.g., location, NbS type, accessibility, biodiversity, safety, aesthetics). This helps identify overlaps and recurring priorities across stakeholders.

• Actively recruit expert knowledge before formal procurement › Actively engage potential contractors in an open discussion prior to the formal tendering phase, to ensure that project specifications are clear and complete, that budget is sufficient and that new ideas are able to enter the information flow early enough to be actioned. › Benefits: This can help address the risk that specifications or budget are inadequate, or that costly changes arise only during construction. • Go public (legitimate/empowering) › Run public tender processes where possible. Invited tender processes reduce transparency and make it more difficult for newcomers to win projects. Also, make sure your tender is very complete in terms of collaborations and specifies the needs and conditions very well, to reduce potential confusion. The tender can make sure the process is just. › Benefits: This can help reduce the risk of complaints about special treatment and widens the pool of potential collaborators. • Get hands on (empowering) › Discuss with community leaders at your intervention site which parts of the construction process might be interesting and meaningful for end-users to engage in – e.g. while some construction activities may demand professional expertise, planting shrubs and trees may be an option. Define age groups and any special needs. Make sure these activities are broadly outlined in the tender specifications and make time to define with the selected contractor a detailed procedure for engagement that is safe and age-appropriate. › Benefits: Involving users of a place directly in its physical transformation can a powerful way of fostering ownership of the intervention and its care later on. It may also equip participants with new skills. • Be available (responsive) › The problems that arise during the construction phase may directly affect the community at your site or nearby; a typical example in Leuven was basements filling with water. Make sure the community can reach you during the construction phase, and that you have a system in place to address problems (e.g. staff to handle complaints and/or to check the construction site). › Benefits: Incidents like this can’t always be avoided, but being available and responding quickly will reduce their impact and avoid negative feelings developing that may increase opposition to your project.

Empowering

  • To give diverse people and organisations the ability to express their needs and have the chance to influence decisions. This means making sure the rules, roles, and tools in place allow all voices – especially the most vulnerable ones – to be heard and respected
TOOL 6 LEARNING LOG TEMPLATE

AUTHORS: BEATRIZ KAUARK FONTES (TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH)

WHAT IT IS A Learning Log is a living document for recording and reflecting on each of your activities with the aim of compiling all experiences in one place, check what worked well, what didn’t and noting what needs to be improved. Our template also provides space to document how you are measuring progress and to record your results, giving you a clear overview of your process in one place. PURPOSE The Learning Log Template aims to foster a culture of reflection, learning, and knowledge exchange throughout your co-governance process; while helping you stay on track with your objectives and goal. By capturing insights in real time, it enables you to identify challenges early, celebrate successes, and build collective learning that strengthens future actions, decision-making, and collaboration. It can also serve as a foundation for reporting, evaluation, and sharing lessons learned. WHEN TO APPLY IT Start using the Learning Log at the very beginning of your NbS project and update it regularly throughout all phases — planning and design; implementation; and management. It works best when used collaboratively, with all key actors contributing their perspectives after each major activity, meeting, or milestone.

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...and carefully review the plans for your NbS intervention(s) with them, incorporating their feedback.

Common barriers are: • lack of trust in authorities due to past experience, • time constraints, • language or cultural differences, • limited environmental education. Help address these barriers by starting with low-threshold activities that don’t demand much of participants. E.g. introducing the concept of NbS, clearly explaining the goals of your project, making your team visible and approachable, and taking time to get to know the local actors and their context. Don’t forget to also invite relevant actors beyond the local community, such as research institutions or NGOs. Building these early relationships can lay the groundwork for stronger, more meaningful collaboration later on. Be careful when engaging the private sector. These actors can play a valuable role, but they may hold more power and influence than others and are often motivated by profit rather than the public interest.

TOOL 1 STAKEHOLDER MAPPING DATABASE

AUTHORS: MAGDALENA JANZIC, FRANCESCA FERRARA AND NINA HORSTMANN (PROSPEX INSTITUTE)

WHAT IT IS Stakeholder mapping is used to know whom to involve in any planning activities and stakeholder engagement around your municipal project. One creates a database of people, organisations, and groups in your community. This may include their contact information for future engagement, which needs to be handled confidentially within your team, if so. PURPOSE

  • Identify who needs to be involved in your project.
  • Understand who influences decisions.
  • Find actors that are often overlooked or excluded.
  • Ensure a balanced representation across different community groups.
  • Plan targeted outreach and track engagement over time.
WHEN TO APPLY IT Begin when starting your project. The database is a living document meant to be updated regularly throughout your project.

Link

During the implementation phase, your nature-based intervention becomes a physical reality. This phase usually includes the following steps: The implementation phase is perhaps the most challenging phase for co-governance. Procurement, construction and associated approvals are typically 'top-down' tasks led by a project manager, with specific rules and norms in place, and opportunities to makes these more collaborative may not be obvious. Certain procurement regulations may prohibit or restrict collaboration, e.g. rules that prevent the contractor and client from discussing the project during the tender period (usually in place to prevent one candidate from obtaining an unfair advantage – important for the legitimacy of the process) at the same time limit the ability to address potential misunderstandings, or for candidates to contribute to improving the project specifications. There may also be some risks involved in engaging non-professionals in construction, e.g. injuries, poor quality work, or unclear responsibilities for fixing defects. Introducing cogovernance in the implementation phase starts with recognising these limitations and being mindful of the regulatory environment specific to your city administration. However, collaborating in this phase also offers potential benefits, making the construction process smoother and leading to a better result (see more below).

  • Procurement of a contractor to construct the intervention (which may involve preparing tender documents, advertising or inviting potential contractors, evaluation of tender submissions, and appointing the successful contractor),
  • Preparation of a contract for the construction works,
  • Obtaining necessary approvals (e.g. building permit),
  • Construction (including management of the budget and dealing with any variations to the design),
  • Monitoring and rectification of defects,
  • Handover.

Legitmate

  • Co-governance must follow democratic values. This includes involving people fairly, being open about how decisions are made, and balancing out unequal influences during the process

TIP: Some outcomes are dependent on other outcomes. Connect these visually in your roadmap, with arrows in a sequence that makes sense for you. Try to group similar outcomes - maybe they can be achieved by aligned actions! Or certain actions might generate more than one outcome.

Many actions can reflect more than one principle at the same time — because these aspects are inherently interconnected. You don’t need to worry about categorising every future action. Instead, focus on keeping the five co- governance principles in mind to strengthen the co-governance of your NbS.

Make sure to conduct evaluation rounds to collect feedback from as many participants as possible. Tender specifications should include provisions for participation in debriefing meetings to evaluate the experience of working together. Time for evaluation should be planned into key meetings and events, e.g. the last meeting of the construction phase, to take advantage of everyone being together. Don’t forget about your roadmap! Do your objectives remain valid or need adjusting, because new information has come to light? Did any new actions come up?

TOOL 8 NBS EVALUATION MATRIX

AUTHORS: ELENI GONI (E2ARC)

WHAT IT IS The NbS Evaluation Matrix is an interactive, Excel-based decision-support tool developed within the JUSTNature project to guide the qualitative assessment and prioritisation of NbS. It offers a structured way to compare multiple intervention scenarios by combining two key dimensions: 1. The expected potential of each solution across several justice areas; and 2. Its implementation complexity, considering risks in financial, technical, scheduling, & value aspects. The tool includes predefined drop-down lists, embedded formulas, and automated calculations to ensure consistency and easy use. Its transparent structure makes the evaluation process clear, traceable, and easy to communicate among different stakeholders.. PURPOSE The main purpose of the NbS Evaluation Matrix is to support municipalities and other actors in making informed, transparent, and participatory decisions when selecting among different NbS design alternatives. By evaluating NbS potential benefits and challenges, the tool helps identify:

  • Quick wins – easy, low - cost interventions with clear benefits;
  • Strategic initiatives - complex solutions with high long-term impact; and
  • Options to revisit - ideas that may require refinement or postponement.

The tool is best used during the concept design and planning phases of NbS development, when several possible interventions or scenarios are being considered. It can also support participatory workshops as a discussion and co-creation aid, particularly when multiple perspectives or competing interests are involved. By making assessment criteria explicit and comparable, the matrix helps balance expectations with feasibility and enables transparent, evidence-based selection of NbS.

Link

WHEN TO APPLY IT

...also to participants who have provided input at workshops, through surveys or however you engaged them. This might be through a slide show at your next workshop, a poster, or an email update, if you have collected email addresses. Don’t forget to thank all the participants for their engagement and time.

Responsive

  • Decisions should be based on evidence—but not only from experts. Local, lived, and community knowledge should also count. Co-governance should actively recognise, analyse and be tailored to the specifics of the local context..

Since governance is a complex concept that doesn’t always fit well with quantitative indicators, try to go beyond common quantitative ways to measure progress, such as counting the number of people taking part in an activity, e.g. by surveying participants to gather their perspectives: if they feel heard and included, how the actors influence (or felt like they influenced) decision making, and/or how useful they found the experience. This can be done through:

  • Short reflective workshops at key stages of the project,
  • Regular assessment surveys with local stakeholders,
  • Internal ‘learning logs' to track how your activities went,
  • Cross-departmental feedback sessions,
  • Resources mapping, to reflect on personal achievements and links to wider structural change over the course of the project.

Digitise notes and feedback as soon as possible after meetings or events, and use shared templates or software (e.g., spreadsheets, transcription tools, or survey platforms) to avoid losing meaning due to poor handwriting or fragmented documentation. Ensure to distinguish between ideas coming from your identified vulnerable group(s), and those coming from groups that might be more dominant.

TOOL 10 GUIDE TO RUNNING A RESOURCES MAPPING WORKSHOP

Tokens to print

AUTHORS: BEATRIZ KAUARK FONTES AND ELEANOR CHAPMAN (TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH)

WHAT IT IS A resource mapping workshop is a participatory reflection exercise designed to help individuals and groups explore how their personal agency has shifted during a project, and how this relates to structural conditions. It invites people to identify the capacities they possess, how these have evolved, and what systemic changes are still needed to ensure lasting impact. PURPOSE

  • Reflect on personal capacities (knowledge, skills, confidence, influence) and how these have changed during the project.
  • Recognise individual and collective contributions to collaborative governance.
  • Link personal agency to broader structural conditions that support or limit change.
  • Identify actions for sustaining co-governance practices beyond the project's lifespan.
WHEN TO APPLY IT
  • As soon as there is a core group of locals interested in collaborating, volunteering, creating or maintaining urban ecosystems in their area.
  • It is more important to use it at the early stages of community development, irrespective of the stages of the physical development of the NbS.
  • It can also be used to build capacity in existing neighbourhood organizations.

Digitise notes and feedback as soon as possible after meetings or events, and use shared templates or software (e.g., spreadsheets, transcription tools, or survey platforms) to avoid losing meaning due to poor handwriting or fragmented documentation. Ensure to distinguish between ideas coming from your identified vulnerable group(s), and those coming from groups that might be more dominant.

JUSTNature design evaluation and final workshop in Leuven, Belgium In the case of Leuven, feedback was systematically collected continuously via emails, phone calls, and street-level interactions, resulting in over written 110 contributions and integrated throughout the co-design of the Meunierstraat pilot. A survey after the final design was developed complemented this process with abour 105 answers, as well as a second round of door-to-door conversations. All this information was fed back into the design team, shaping both the pilot and broader NbS planning in the city. At the end of the co-design phase a final workshop was held where project partners and designers presented the updated plans, explained how community input had influenced the process, and invited final comments. This participatory and responsive approach proved highly effective: the pilot was widely accepted and stakeholders expressed strong support. The circular participatory approach was credited as key to the design success.

Collaborative

  • Instead of creating conflicts, co-governance should help people collaborate and find solutions that benefit everyone: to identify a common problem and a shared goal. To mobilise and coordinate individual efforts, integrating multiple levels of governance, different governmental departments and external actors in service of a shared goal
TOOL 4 DIGITAL WHITEBOARD TO CREATE A THEORY OF CHANGE

AUTHORS: ELEANOR CHAPMAN (TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH)

WHAT IT IS A Theory of Change (or roadmap) plays a role as a basis for effective communication between the people involved in your project, especially your working group. It outlines a shared vision and the steps to get there. A ‘change pathway’ or strategic roadmap can be act as a visual summary of how you plan to get from A to B, which will aid internal planning and progress tracking, as well as help to explain to colleagues and other stakeholders why certain things need to be done. PURPOSE This digital whiteboard gives you a template to set up your roadmap (or change pathway). WHEN TO APPLY IT • Early in your project development, after setting up your collaborative environment, and before the spatial planning and design phase. • Ideally, in connection with reviewing your project objectives and in collaboration with the other actors (internal and external) of your project.

Link

Keep in mind that the SMART objective framework encourages you to be realistic about your context and constraints. This can be useful to manage your scope of work, but it’s important too to think about the ambition of your overall goal, and which objectives might put something in motion that outlives your project and contributes to changing your wider working environment for the longer term.

Co-governance is not without its challenges and may represent a significant disruption to ‘business-as-usual'. The extra effort needs to be justified. Arguments for the value of ‘doing’ co-governance can be broadly divided between two camps: a technical, efficiency-oriented rationale and a political, transformation-oriented rationale aiming at the common good. In terms of the first, it can be argued that pooling resources and expertise to tackle a problem collaboratively supports better solutions to problems and more scope for innovation that would otherwise not be possible. This is crucial for city administrations, faced with having to do increasingly more with fewer resources.

No matter what you decide, clearly record how decisions were made, why certain needs were prioritised, why some suggestions were not taken up, and which suggestions were left to be addressed in the future, so you can show accountability for the process.

TOOL 7 GUIDE TO RUNNING A LOCAL STAKEHOLDER WORKSHOP

AUTHORS: MAGDALENA JANZIC, FRANCESCA FERRARA AND NINA HORSTMANN (PROSPEX INSTITUTE)

WHAT IT IS A Local Stakeholder Workshop brings community members together to discuss, plan, and shape municipal projects. These are structured meetings where residents, local organisations, businesses, and city staff work together to create solutions. They can be expanded through public community events or pop-up activities to reach more people. PURPOSE Use stakeholder workshops to ensure that your project serves all community members. Through these workshops you can:

  • Help community members understand your project and contribute their ideas in order to gain their support
  • Design solutions together with those who will use them, are affected by them or can contribute to them, so that your project results in a lively and cherished space
  • Include and consider the voices of those stakeholders who are often left out of city planning, such as children or people using wheelchairs
  • Learn what works and what doesn’t so that you can optimise and repeat the process in other projects
  • Build lasting relationships with engaged community members, to strengthen the trust and support for your future initiatives

Local stakeholder workshops are an engagement format that support the relevance, acceptance and long-term sustainability of your project by making sure that the project development is aligned with community’s needs.An engagement cycle could include 5-6 workshops held at key moments throughout your project:

  • Explore and Design – What do we need? What could work here?
  • Plan Implementation – Who does what? How do we make this happen?
  • Set Up Governance – Who manages this in the long-term? How do we make decisions?
  • Plan for Sustainability – How do we fund this? Can we involve local businesses for mutual benefit?
  • Evaluate Together – What worked? What did we learn?

WHEN TO APPLY IT

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