Social housing as focus area for Nature-based Solutions to strengthen urban resilience and justice: Lessons from practice in the Netherlands

Abstract

Social housing typically encompasses neighbourhoods with low social-economic status. Here, environmental problems like climate change and biodiversity loss have a higher impact than in other neighbourhoods. Applying Nature-based Solutions (NbS) may enhance the resilience of social housing neighbourhoods and as such make cities more just. In this article we explore to what extent NbS can be applied, given the physical, social and financial limitations that define Dutch social housing practice, and - by doing so – what NbS can contribute to environmental justice. Based upon several Living Lab experiences and dialogues with numerous housing corporations, ten NbS measures have been identified that likely will match with current practices in social housing. Implementing NbS contributes to all aspects of environmental justice, with distributional justice as the most straightforward one (more NbS means more environmental benefits). Procedural and recognitional justice were found to be of crucial importance to make greenspaces worthwhile for the residents. Our study draws attention to the fact that NbS knowledge is key but currently still insufficient, both within housing corporations as within the key partners (local authorities, landscaping firms). This means that there is a growing demand to increase NbS knowledge in the social housing sector. We finalize this article with recommendations on how to meet this demand.