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Sophie Mok is a researcher and project manager in the "Urban Economy Innovation" unit at the Fraunhofer IAO in Stuttgart, Germany. She is leading the replication work package in the H2020 project UNaLab, which focusses on how nature-based solutions help cities to become more climate and water resilient. Sophie is also involved in further local and international research projects in the area of sustainable and climate-friendly urban development, resource-efficient future street design, and urban farming. Sophie holds a Master’s degree in Bioeconomy and a Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Sciences and Hydrology.
Nature-based solutions (NBS) have emerged as an important concept to build climate resilience in cities whilst providing a wide range of ecological, economic, and social co-benefits. With the ambition of increasing NBS uptake, diverse actors have been developing means to demonstrate and prove these benefits. However, the multifunctionality, the different types of benefits provided, and the context-specificity make it difficult to capture and communicate their overall value. In this paper, a value-based framework is presented that allows for structured navigation through these issues with the goal of identifying key values and engaging beneficiaries from the public, private, and civil society sector in the development of NBS. Applied methods such as focus groups, interviews, and surveys were used to assess different framework components and their interlinkages, as well as to test its applicability in urban planning. Results suggest that more specialized “hard facts” might be needed to actually attract larger investments of specific actors. However, the softer and more holistic approach could inspire and support the forming of alliances amongst a wider range of urban stakeholders and the prioritization of specific benefits for further assessment. Consequently, it is argued that both hard and soft approaches to nature valuation will be necessary to further promote and drive the uptake of NBS in cities.
Sophie Mok; Ernesta Mačiulytė; Pieter Bult; Tom Hawxwell. Valuing the Invaluable(?)—A Framework to Facilitate Stakeholder Engagement in the Planning of Nature-Based Solutions. Sustainability 2021, 13, 2657 .
AMA StyleSophie Mok, Ernesta Mačiulytė, Pieter Bult, Tom Hawxwell. Valuing the Invaluable(?)—A Framework to Facilitate Stakeholder Engagement in the Planning of Nature-Based Solutions. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (5):2657.
Chicago/Turabian StyleSophie Mok; Ernesta Mačiulytė; Pieter Bult; Tom Hawxwell. 2021. "Valuing the Invaluable(?)—A Framework to Facilitate Stakeholder Engagement in the Planning of Nature-Based Solutions." Sustainability 13, no. 5: 2657.