Presentation short abstract

A systematic review examining how justice is operationalized across the NBS project cycle, revealing uneven integration of justice principles and highlighting opportunities to support more inclusive and accountable NBS practices.

Presentation long abstract

Justice has been raised as a key element in the planning and implementation of Nature-based Solutions (NBS) to ensure they are relevant to their social-ecological context, by providing desired benefits while avoiding the creation of new challenges. However, as NBS become more mainstream and the concept of justice evolves, understandings of what constitutes just NBS development remain heterogeneous and inconsistent across cases. This ambiguity is concerning given that NBS interventions may unintentionally reproduce existing power asymmetries and socio-environmental inequalities.

This presentation introduces a systematic literature review examining how justice is operationalized across the NBS project cycle, focusing on case studies that explicitly engage with justice principles. Drawing on diverse justice traditions, including distributional, procedural, recognition, restorative and ecological justice, as well as intersectional and more-than-human perspectives, the review explores two questions: (a) which forms of justice are addressed during the planning, implementation, maintenance and monitoring of NBS, and (b) which practices have been developed to pursue just outcomes.

Preliminary insights show that justice is widely acknowledged but unevenly integrated across phases, with most attention concentrated on planning and design, while implementation, maintenance and monitoring receive far less consideration. Non-human subjects of justice also appear infrequently, and distributive perspectives remain the most common approach.

By situating these patterns within the broader governance dynamics of NBS, the study aims to contribute to the panel’s discussion on how NBS practices may unintentionally reinforce inequalities or, alternatively, support more legitimate, accountable, and inclusive outcomes for communities.