Making co-creation operational: A RECONECT seven-steps-pathway and practical guide for co-creating nature-based solutions

Abstract

Co-creation as a practice of collaborative product or service development is not a novel concept, however its application in the field of nature-based solutions (NBS) requires a certain level of knowledge, expertise and capacity building to ensure a shared understanding and collaborative dialogue. NBS are defined as cost-effective and ecosystem-based solutions to solving sustainability challenges and climate-change pressures through embedding a more citizen-oriented engagement within its implementation. Although some co-creation principles and guidelines are scientifically well elaborated, only a few of them was put into practice. Thus there is still a need for making them clearer and more feasible to a broad range of stakeholders from the non-scientific community. This problem is mostly caused by the lack of easy-to use framework / strategy for organizing a co-creation and selecting the appropriate co-creation activity for the certain purpose of the NBS realization process. It includes making a right decision on what particular tools, how and with what groups of stakeholders can be applied in a certain case and by the availability of particular resources. For this purpose, a stepwise pathway/guide on how participatory approach can be incorporated into the whole process of NBS co-creation was developed within the RECONECT project. The main innovative contribution of this work is to propose the following ready-to-use solutions:•detailed seven-steps-co-creation pathway and practical recommendations for NBS design and implementation;•multidimensional and comprehensive decision-making matrix consisting of 88 tools for selecting the most suitable solution (tool) according to the particular co-creation goal, available resources and capacities;•additional resources to facilitate and operationalise the co-creation process at each stage of NBS development, offered in the form of a Toolbox.