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Article
Nature and Space
Nature-based solutions as
discursive tools and contested
practices in urban nature’s
neoliberalisation processes
Panagiota Kotsila , Isabelle Anguelovski,
Francesc Bar
o, Johannes Langemeyer,
Filka Sekulova and James JT Connolly
Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA), Spain;
Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), Spain
Abstract
‘Nature-based solutions’ is the new jargon used to promote ideas of urban sustainability, which is
gaining traction in both academic and policy circles, especially in the European Union. Through an
analysis of the definitions and discourse around nature-based solutions, we discern a number of
assumptions stemming from positivist science that are embedded in the term, and which we find
create an inviting space for nature’s neoliberalisation processes. We provide empirical analysis of how
these assumptions realise in two city-initiated projects in Barcelona, Spain, that have been identified as
nature-based solutions: the green corridor of Passeig de Sant Joan and the community garden of Espai
Germanetes supported under the municipal Pla Buits scheme.Bothprojectswereborninaneoliberal
political climate, but their outcomes in terms of neoliberalism and its contestation were very distinct
– not least because of the different forms of governance and socio-natural interaction that these two
projects foster. Urban nature can serve elite economic players at the expense of widespread socio-
ecological benefits. But it can also serve as a ground for the articulation of demands for open and
participatory green spaces that go beyond precarious and controlled stewardship for, or market-
mediated interactions with, urban nature. We urge for future research and practice on nature-based
solutions to be more critical of the term itself, and to guide its instrumentalisation in urban planning
away from neoliberal agendas and towards more emancipatory and just socio-ecological futures.
Keywords
Nature-based solutions, urban greening, nature’s neoliberalisation, urban planning, sustainability,
discourse analysis
Corresponding author:
Panagiota Kotsila, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Carrer de les Columnes, Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Valles),
Barcelona, Catalunya 08193, Spain.
Email: Panagiota.kotsila@gmail.com
EPE: Nature and Space
0(0) 1–23
!The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/2514848620901437
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Introduction
In a recently released video, environmental activists Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot
(The Guardian, 2019) highlight the need to protect, restore and use nature to tackle the
climate crisis. In their compelling video, they make reference to ‘natural climate solutions’
and ‘natural-based solutions’, highlighting the role of nature in repairing our broken climate
but only, they warn, if we also stop extracting and burning fossil fuels. This idea is not new
but it is, as they argue, largely ignored. At the same time, over the last decade, a seemingly
similar concept has been increasingly promoted in international research and policy circles
(Cohen-Shacham et al., 2016). Nature-based solutions (NBS) are defined within these
circles as actions that are inspired by, supported by or copied from nature (EC, 2015)
(see Table 1).
NBS were first developed as a policy instrument by scientifically oriented NGOs and
finance organisations such as The Nature Conservancy, the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature and the World Bank (Cohen-Shacham et al., 2016; Faivre et al.,
2017). NBS is an encompassing term that frames debates and proposals on climate change
adaptation and mitigation, sustainable resource use and biodiversity conservation, primarily
in cities (Frantzeskaki et al., 2019). NBS is a tool for more generally offsetting carbon
emission and fuel dependency (Seddon et al., 2019). Despite scepticism and vagueness
that surrounds the concept (Nature Editorial, 2017), in September 2019, the UN Climate
Action Summit called for greater investment and financial tools for NBS in order to address
the climate crisis.
In Europe, specifically, NBS are seen not only as an alternative means to address social
needs and enhance natural environments but also as a way of boosting green innovation and
resilience in cities. The European Commission (EC) has been promoting NBS and
re-naturing in cities as a way to:
Table 1. Aims, governance principles and examples of nature-based solutions.
NBS vision NBS governance principles NBS examples
Inspired by or supported
by nature
Determined by site-specific cul-
tural context and local
knowledge
Green areas for water management
(e.g. constructed wetlands, rain
gardens, resilient parks)
Nature conservation and
biodiversity as part of
its objectives (but not
subsumed by NBS)
Implementation via several actor
groups, reflexive governance,
transparency
External building greens/grey infra-
structure with green features
Multi-functionality in
terms of sustainability
(environmental, societal
and economic benefits)
Citizens involvement, participa-
tory governance
Blue/green areas that combine rec-
reation, biodiversity and eco-
nomic benefits
Social justice, equity and
social cohesion
Implemented independently or in
an integrated manner
Community gardens; green roofs on
social housing; green school
playgrounds
Environmental quality,
health and well-being
Consider and support cultural
heritage, cultural diversity
together with environmental
restoration
Regeneration of derelict/vacant,
contaminated places for nature-
rich recreation spaces (incl. com-
munity gardens)
Based on review of key publications (Cohen-Shacham et al., 2016; Kabisch et al., 2016; Maes and Jacobs, 2017; Raymond
et al., 2017) and the Naturvation project website (https://naturvation.eu).
2EPE: Nature and Space 0(0)
[...] Simultaneously improve economic (new products, services, business models, mobilization of
new investments), social (jobs, wellbeing, community solidarity and health) and environmental
(preservation and restoration of biodiversity, ecosystems and ecosystem services, sustainable
land use and spatial planning, land take and soil sealing, as well as reduced air and noise
pollution) resilience of rural and natural areas by taking into account the wider system and
aiming at ecological stability. (EC, 2015)
This focus is underpinned and supported by a colossal research-funding infrastructure.
1
Up to 2018, the European Union (EU) alone had 17 funded research and innovation
projects related to NBS
2
for a total approximate budget of 120m Euros. Many of those
projects directly involve city authorities as partners who are expected to contribute to the
evaluation, up-scaling and diffusion of NBS (e.g. the Clever Cities project or ThinkNature).
As the concept increasingly gains traction through wide-reaching environmental activism, it
is worth examining how ‘nature’ is mobilised in NBS, by whom, and what aspects of envi-
ronmental issues are targeted in order to serve which interests.
Up to now, much of the resulting research has been focused on either defining or refining
NBS for the purpose of implementation, pointing to their weaknesses, success factors and
potential (Cohen-Shacham et al., 2019; Frantzeskaki et al., 2019). However, little attention
has been given to questioning the epistemological origin and related political significance of
the concept (but see Haase et al., 2017). More specifically, there is no study to date that
enquires as to what the different mobilisations of this concept do for signposting urban
ecological futures, or what sort of power/knowledge relationships are reflected and rein-
forced through the propagation and implementation of NBS. In this light, we ask: How,
why and to what extent is the NBS concept captured by neoliberal agendas in urban
governance?
Our focus on urban NBS stems from the role increasingly played by cities as political and
economic players pushing sustainability to the forefront of national and international agen-
das (Betsill and Bulkeley, 2006; Thorns, 2002: 194). First, cities are called to develop plans to
address the impacts of climate change on urban residents, infrastructure and resources
(Portney, 2013). Cities are also expected to be the main growth machines of global econo-
mies, while at the same time urbanisation appears to be a major driver of climate change
(Kalnay and Cai, 2003) and is intensifying climate change impacts (such as elevated urban
temperatures) (Chapman et al., 2017). Responding to these multiple – and often contra-
dicting – expectations, urban sustainability seems to be following an orthodoxy for new,
green, resilient, smart and sustainable cities (Connolly, 2019) which seeks win-win solutions
for both environmentalism and growth in liberal economies (Anguelovski and Alier, 2014).
Urban sustainability discourses thus often represent the transformation of more radical
ideas for intervention into system-affirming tools that do not question the growth imperative
(Sekulova et al., 2017; Tulloch and Neilson, 2014).
This trend cannot be separated from the global acceleration of state-sponsored neoliber-
alisation since the 1980s (Harvey, 2007).
3
Indeed, sustainability discourse emerged alongside
neoliberalism as two parallel and porous processes (Krueger and Gibbs, 2007), giving the
latter an air of inevitability (Brand, 2007; Heynen and Robbins, 2005). In formal city pol-
itics, neoliberalism is expressed mainly in the decentralisation of state authority and the
incorporation of non-state governing actors, the re-structuring of municipal governments
into business-like institutions, and the increased number of governance priorities stemming
from supranational authorities, like the EU (Swyngedouw, 2005). Nature has been increas-
ingly mobilised as a commodified part of urban neoliberal environmentalism and the so-
called ‘sustainability fixes’ can be found in urban agriculture narratives and practices (Pirro
Kotsila et al. 3
and Anguelovski, 2017; Walker, 2016) or entrepreneurial city regimes which ‘selectively
incorporate ecological objectives in local territorial structures during an era of ecological
modernization’ (While et al., 2004).
The repercussions of these new forms of urban nature’s neoliberalisation are more sig-
nificant now than ever, as securing the need for clean air, climatic refuge and relief, greener
spaces and the overall benefits of urban nature becomes a more urgent task in a changing
climate. NBS represent the discursive evolution of urban sustainability into ideas and
implementations that intensely mobilise nature and environmental values along with
innovation and socio-economic benefits. With this context in mind, our paper uses a critical
political ecology framework to look at the relationship between NBS and neoliberal
ideologies, examining NBS both as a concept that renders itself vulnerable to neoliberal
manipulation and as a diverse bundle of identified practices.
In the next section, we provide an analysis of the ambiguity of the NBS concept empha-
sising how misleading it is to assume that NBS can – alone – balance trade-offs
(Turkelboom et al., 2018) associated with the ‘triple bottom line’ of economic, environmen-
tal and social sustainability (or benefits) in some way different than prior sustainability
efforts. We point to how the NBS concept is currently mobilised to make ‘certain assump-
tions about the environment [become] more possible or likely’ (Robbins, 2011: 97), and due
to the nature of those assumptions, allows for the expansion of urban nature’s neoliberal-
isation processes. In the ‘Methods and case study’ section, we describe our methods and
selected case study context of Barcelona, and in the ‘Re-naturing the neoliberal city:
Tensions and contradictions of NBS projects in Barcelona’ section, we provide our empirical
analysis of two city-initiated projects identified (a posteriori) as NBS. In the ‘Discussion’
section, we argue that, while NBS implementations are couched in an emerging global
conceptual definition, they are always also characterised by their specific contextual tensions
and contestations, navigating the dialectical relationship between urban nature’s neoliber-
alisation and the counter-narratives and counter-practices of local residents. In the
‘Concluding remarks’ section, we further argue that an effective future research and
policy agenda on planning for urban nature and re-naturing should not continue ignoring
questions of conflict, contestation, justice and equity.
NBS and their potential in urban nature’s neoliberalisations
Urban nature’s neoliberalisations
Processes of nature’s neoliberalisation are hard to fit into typologies. Evidence of such
processes has been scattered, often describing the phenomenon but not giving it a name.
Since the 1990s, environmental concerns have translated into ‘private-oriented governance
model(s) for the sustainability of socio-environmental systems’ (Swyngedouw, 2007a: 58).
Land and resources are appropriated in the name of the environment (Fairhead et al., 2012),
water is privatised for its ‘better management’ (Bakker, 2003), and even environmental
justice claims and practices have been captured in neoliberal tendencies (Checker, 2011;
Holifield, 2004). Nature is produced and governed in increasingly neoliberal ways
(Bakker, 2010; Castree, 2008b; Heynen et al., 2007; Heynen and Robbins, 2005), involving
changing nature materially/metabolically, while also governing, contesting and claiming it
for the affirmation, power and benefits of certain privileged groups (Bakker, 2015; Castree,
2008b; Heynen et al., 2006).
Since the late 1970s–1980s, pro-environment discourse has taken root in parallel with
neoliberalism and has also come to be largely captured by it (McCarthy and Prudham,
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2004), as in the example of the sustainable development paradigm. Neoliberalism is, as
Castree (2008a) puts it, ‘one possible ‘shell’ for the capitalist mode of production’, which
can offer a number of ‘environmental fixes’, ‘to the endemic problem of sustained economic
growth’. If the privatisation and de-collectivisation of water resources is one example
(Swyngedouw, 2005), so is the ‘smart growth’ politics in cities like Austin (Tretter, 2013),
and the marketisation of ecosystem services in the case of wetland mitigation banking
(Robertson, 2004). In other words, unfettered capitalism, sustainability practice and tech-
nocratic planning have so far largely gone hand in hand (Gibbs et al., 2013; Hagerman,
2007; Krueger and Gibbs, 2007; Swyngedouw, 2007b), and thus the rise of neoliberalism is
tightly connected to our shifting commitments to, representations of, and practices in nature
(Castree, 2008a, 2008b; Heynen et al., 2007).
With regard to the urban sphere, critical urban scholars have noted the importance of
looking at the dialectic between urbanisation and neoliberalisation processes. Here both
climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies have often become the proxy for urban
environmentalism (Whitehead, 2013) and connected to what scholars have called ‘sustain-
ability fixes’ (While et al., 2004). At the same time, governing through the sustainable city
paradigm enters the realm of personal choices and behaviours through self-regulation and
technologies of the self (Foucault, 1988). These include the creation of sustainable subjects:
citizens that willingly shape their everyday practice and the ‘spatial consumption in the
home and neighbourhood, on the streets and around town’ (Brand, 2007), complying
with or adapting to sustainability priorities. Self-regulation connects to roll-out neoliberal-
ism
4
where state authorities are actively defining how neoliberalisation will be deployed (e.g.
outsourcing services, implementing market proxies or through individual ‘responsibilisation’
policies). In urban sustainability, for example, redistribution of responsibilities for environ-
mental planning and implementation has often been moved from state-driven agendas to
corporations, non-profits and citizen groups (McClintock, 2014; Perkins, 2009).
This important literature, however, lacks a core understanding of how urban re-naturing
is mobilised (physically and discursively) to enable neoliberal transformations in both insti-
tutions and subjects, and the contradictions and limitations of this process. We know, for
example, that while the preservation of (public) green/blue space has often competed with
real estate, it is now increasingly becoming an integral part of such developments in order to
enhance housing value (Immergluck, 2009; Rosol, 2013). More recently, the creation or
restoration of green amenities – parks, gardens, greenways – has been associated with gen-
trification trends in the context of neoliberal development paradigms (Anguelovski, 2015;
Anguelovski et al., 2018b; Gould and Lewis, 2016). In the case of urban gardens and local
environmental practices driven or sustained by residents, their transformative effects
(Pudup, 2008) are also limited by neoliberal embedding and co-optation (McClintock,
2014; Rosol, 2012) as they are underpinned by voluntary labour. Perkins (2011) similarly
has argued that tree planting and stewardship can illustrate an instrument for extending
market hegemony, even if people’s direct involvement in the production of urban ecologies
goes beyond market ideology. This bundle of work makes it clear that mobilising nature
might be part of a solution, but it can also be part of the problem – if the problem is too
narrowly and apolitically defined – or made invisible. In this regard, we call for a more
careful analysis of the concepts used to describe, evaluate and promote urban nature and
re-naturing, and a closer examination of their role in shaping power relations in socio-
natural assemblages. The newly emerging concept of NBS is a particularly critical example
of such concepts and processes.
Most recently, NBS and connected concepts, such as ecosystem services or green infra-
structure, have grown in strength within (urban) sustainability discourses and policies.
Kotsila et al. 5
Yet, the novelty of such concepts does not free them from previous contradictions of sus-
tainability, and thus they too need to be problematised and scrutinised (Haase et al., 2017;
Turkelboom et al., 2018). In a nutshell, such mechanistic and seemingly apolitical concepts,
are according to their critics, ‘blinding us to the ecological, economic, and political com-
plexities of the challenges we actually face’ (Norgaard, 2010). Today, in the policy world,
especially so in Europe, NBS seems to be one of the most explicitly utilitarian/instrumental
approaches that uses the ‘ecosystem services’ approach and stands as an umbrella term for
‘nature-based interventions’, ‘ecosystem-based solutions’ and ‘ecosystem-based adaptation’,
to name a few (Potschin et al., 2015). The disciplinary genealogy of such terms, the meta-
phors they encompass and the ambiguity that surrounds them, turn them into easily adap-
tive, flexible tools that can serve distinct agendas – neoliberalism being potentially being one
of them (Schr€
oter et al., 2014).
The emergence of NBS and their underlying assumptions
Recent literature on NBS is characterised by a common notion of three underlying assump-
tions, which connect NBS to urban sustainability discourse and its unresolved contradic-
tions. The first assumption concerns the ability of NBS to deliver triple-win outcomes, aka
benefits for the environment, society and the economy (EC, 2015), through a focus on
‘innovation, growth and job creation’ (Faivre et al., 2017). This vision for the role of
NBS reproduces a combined and dogmatic belief of trickle-down economics, on the one
hand, and on decoupling CO
2
emissions (as a proxy for environmental harm) from unfet-
tered economic growth through technology and modernisation, on the other. It thus ignores
socio-environmental inequalities and injustices that are built into current capitalist neolib-
eral economies, and of their dire socio-ecological consequences (D’alisa et al., 2014; Kosoy
and Corbera, 2010).
The second assumption, relatedly, sees nature as a repository of prototype processes that
can be objectively measured, transformed and harnessed (Potschin et al., 2015; Schr€
oter
et al., 2014). This allows for an economistic reading of nature’s services, brushing aside the
value of non-replicable human–nature interactions (aka, complex biophysical formations at
specific historical and geographical contexts). As a result, nature’s commodification creates
new sites for capital valuation and accumulation (G
omez-Baggethun and Ruiz-P
erez, 2011;
Kull et al., 2015), while neoliberal ‘environmental fixes’ protect private and privileged
interests that depend on natural resource exploitation.
The third assumption has to do with the prescriptive nature of NBS (‘solutions’). It is
here assumed that socio-ecological trade-offs or other ‘disservices’ have been negotiated and
digested in NBS implementation (Haase et al., 2017; Schaubroeck, 2017). But clashing
visions and interests surrounding nature can only be incorporated in NBS as a matter of
interpretation and contestation (Eggermont et al., 2015; Kabisch et al., 2016; Nessh€
over
et al., 2017; Turkelboom et al., 2018). The ambivalence around what to prioritise and who
will decide frees the way for NBS to be caught in the neoliberal hegemony of our times.
Notably, democracy is compromised when this ambivalence leans towards top-down, tech-
nocratic decisions with little consideration of justice, but also, in these circumstances, ‘envi-
ronmental interpretations are arguably losing out’ (Wright, 2011).
In sum, it is becoming clear that the way in which the NBS concept has so far been
proposed and mobilised makes ‘certain assumptions about the environment [become] more
possible or likely’ (Robbins, 2011: 97), and due to the nature of those assumptions, allows
for the expansion of urban nature’s neoliberalisation processes. Here it is important to
consider that most NBS so far have been studied on the basis of their identification as
6EPE: Nature and Space 0(0)
such a posteriori by researchers or stakeholders, who have secured funding to study, pro-
mote and/or implement them. By selecting and characterising projects as NBS – indepen-
dently of whether weaknesses and contradictions are later assigned – researchers and
policymakers pre-emptively assign them with the positive notion that comes with the term
‘solution’. Indeed, literature that is critical of how NBS are realised on the ground is
increasingly emerging (Cohen-Shacham et al., 2019; Frantzeskaki et al., 2019; Seddon
et al., 2019). This, however, does not undo the fact that people, resources and claims
have already been mobilised to create traction for NBS-inspired interventions. Research
results are presented as knowledge of exemplary practices, and conclusions are drawn based
on a conceptual and empirical basis that is not necessarily representative of what is envi-
sioned or practiced on the ground. The idea of NBS, and the projects identified as such, thus
creates a dominating discourse around how to envision and implement urban nature; a form
of urban ‘greenmentality’,
5
embedded in and feeding from a neoliberal paradigm, truly
problematic for a progressive governance of sustainability and nature.
Methods and case study
Our analysis is based both on a critical review of published writings on NBS, including
academic publications and policy/research reports, and on empirical qualitative research.
For the first part, we analysed documents that referred to and described ‘Nature-based
solutions’. Based on discourse analysis, we explored the textual (metaphors, the content
matter of words, and ‘macro’ structures such as topics and themes) and contextual (the
production and reception processes, and the reproduction of ideology in such processes)
discourse (Lupton, 1992) around NBS, paying attention to its disciplinary emergence and
use in academia and policy circles.
For the second part, we conducted an in-depth study of two NBS projects to illustrate the
nuances of the dialectic between neoliberalism and urban sustainability as it is expressed
through the emerging NBS policy framework. Our field research was carried out in
Barcelona, a city that despite its relative lack of green spaces in the central part of the
city, has in the last two decades become one of the focal and emblematic sites of sustain-
ability policy and practice deployment in Europe (Anguelovski et al., 2018a). For our selec-
tion of NBS cases we used a pool of greening projects identified as NBS in the Urban Nature
Atlas (https://naturvation.eu/atlas) of the ‘Naturvation’, Horizon 2020 EU-funded project.
From the 10 NBS that this Atlas presents as NBS in Barcelona, we selected 2 diverse NBS
projects, with different sponsors, funding sources, types of nature, and active stakeholders
and participants:
1. Passeig (Ps.) de Sant Joan: The restoration and transformation of the Sant Joan Avenue
into a green corridor boulevard with enlarged sidewalks, variety of trees/shrubs perme-
able pavements and public green spaces.
2. Espai Germanetes: The development of an urban community garden under the first imple-
mentation of the ‘Pla Buits’ plan of vacant lots clean-up and conversion.
Between May and July 2017, we conducted 20 semi-structured qualitative interviews with
top-level officials and municipal staff members, as well as key users and stakeholders of the
selected interventions. The sample of interviewees was developed through purposive, non-
random selection. We augmented these interviews, first, with a review of key academic texts
around these specific types of NBS, and second, through key policy documents that
describe, promote and evaluate nature in urban environments, focusing on city-level policies
Kotsila et al. 7
for the case of Barcelona. Although the selected projects were not negotiated or imple-
mented as NBS by local stakeholders, they matched the criteria commonly used in NBS
definitions (especially by the EU – see the ‘Introduction’ section, in this article), and were
identified a posteriori as such by our team of researchers. Our analysis therefore partly
emerges from our own reflections about our work and illustrates how applying
existing NBS definitions can often perpetuate discourse that is conducive to nature’s
neoliberalisation.
Re-naturing the neoliberal city: Tensions and contradictions of NBS
projects in Barcelona
Both the green corridor of Passeig (Ps.) de Sant Joan and the municipally supported com-
munity garden of Espai Germanetes within the Pla Buits scheme have been celebrated for
contributing to greening the dense and heavily polluted Eixample district of central
Barcelona. They were also both ‘born’ within a context of supporting the economy, either
building ‘the Barcelona brand’ (in the end of 1990s beginning 2000s for Ps. de Sant Joan)or
salvaging that brand in the face of economic crisis (2008–2014) through the activity of civil
society groups in the case of Espai Germanetes. However, these two projects were not
equally or similarly embedded in neoliberal agendas of urban planning, and this owed
both to their governance structures (fully participatory in Germanetes versus top-down in
Ps. de Sant Joan) and the context of municipal politics, which drastically changed in 2015,
with the election of the social movement-born government of Barcelona en Com
u.
From grey bureaucracies and the ‘smart city’, to more equitable and participatory
greening: Shifts and legacies of environmental governance from 1980s to today
Barcelona, despite its high ratio of street trees per inhabitant (1,2/10) and direct public
beach access, has historically faced a deficit of green space compared to other EU cities
(Fuller and Gaston, 2009; Pauleit et al., 2002). As a result, in the 1980s, the newly demo-
cratic municipality of Barcelona sought to compensate decades of underinvestment with
green space provision in lower-income neighbourhoods, by building new parks and gardens,
many of which were designed with strong social purposes in mind (Saur
ı et al., 2009) and
motivated by citizens’ demands and mobilisations (Barcelona City Council, 2013: 52).
However, during the pre- and post-1992 games, public green spaces started to be seen by
municipal supporters as less of a neighbourhood anchor and more an aesthetic amenity (co)-
financed by private funds and for the benefit of visitors and tourists (Anguelovski, 2014;
Montaner, 2012; Saur
ı et al., 2009).
By the end of the 1990s and early 2000s, green space provision became intertwined with
the redevelopment of large post-industrial areas of the city (i.e. Poble Nou) and anchored
around new real estate developments and the rebranding of Barcelona, both through long-
standing campaigns (Barcelona posa’t guapa 1980s–2009) and more recent ‘smart city’ ini-
tiatives (Anguelovski, 2014; del Pulgar et al., 2020). These years were also marked by large-
scale traffic reconfiguration and planning of new green space and infrastructure in ways that
can also address water permeability, noise reduction and micro-climate regulation needs
(Barcelona City Council, 2010).
Alongside greening and urban planning developments, significant shifts can also be
observed in the political and institutional terrains that have shaped the governance model
of the city more generally. While the 1980s were marked by the formation and consolidation
of representative institutions, the 1990s saw the development and rise of the ‘Barcelona
8EPE: Nature and Space 0(0)
Model’ with public–private, inter-governmental arrangements and a shift towards neoliber-
alisation in the aftermath of the 1992 Olympic Games (Blanco, 2015). At the same time,
however, the 1990s illustrated the upsurge of social movements and the increasing role of
social organisations and networks advocating for citizen participation in decision-making
(Blanco, 2015; Mart
ı, 2012). After more than a decade (2000s–early 2010s) of private-sector
and investment oriented urban green politics (Anguelovski et al., 2018b), the City of
Barcelona today puts a strong emphasis on equitable access to green and climate change
adaptation and mitigation measures tailored to the needs of vulnerable social groups and
created with them (Barcelona City Council, 2013, 2018). It is thus in a context of neo-
liberalisation and its contestation through citizens’ counter-practices, that urban greening/
re-naturing has been evolving during the last couple of decades in Barcelona.
Just as in most local policy arenas (Nature Editorial, 2017; Raymond et al., 2017), the
concept of NBS does not appear to have been distilled as a key term in the emerging policy
panorama of the city. However, many of the implemented and planned projects fit the
criteria for NBS, such as turning streets into new green corridors and supporting the cre-
ation of urban gardens, both of which have been part of the goal in recent years to (re)
naturalise the city. The 2018 municipal Barcelona Climate Plan commits the city to an
increase of 1 m
2
of green space per inhabitant by 2030 (Barcelona City Council, 2018).
A key priority is to enhance the built environment with elements that introduce, restore
or reinforce green space, recognising this as an integral and necessary part of urban sus-
tainability. Overall, unlike the emphasis on green innovation and growth that one finds
tied to NBS definitions, policy documents that describe climate adaptation and green infra-
structure in Barcelona do not explicitly emphasise such elements – yet also do not question
or oppose them.
Green corridors were a strong priority articulated through the ‘Green infrastructure and
Biodiversity Plan for 2020’ (Barcelona City Council, 2013). The renewal of the Passeig (Ps.)
de Sant Joan has been a cornerstone of this policy, despite it being initially planned as an
urban regeneration project in the mid-2000s, aiming to enhance the provision of socio-
cultural benefits to urban residents. The municipal Biodiversity Department proposed and
succeeded in inserting ecological/sustainability priorities and thus Ps. de Sant Joan became
Barcelona’s first green corridor, incorporating dense and diverse greenery by reducing car
lanes to one on each side (in addition to a bus lane), and expanding the sidewalk to a width
of 17 m. Of this unusually large width, 6 m were to be dedicated to pedestrian circulation
and 11 m to be occupied by vegetation, resting areas, playgrounds and bar terraces.
While green objectives were gaining ground, during the 2000s, the impacts of socio-
economic recession were also becoming more visible, and this triggered new types of inter-
vention and policy. One outcome of the crisis was the abandonment of many real estate
development projects and the dereliction of unused urban land. In 2012, to respond to this
increase in public vacant plots and to address civic demands for self-managed open spaces,
the municipality launched the Pla Buits programme (Urban Vacant Lots with Territorial
and Social Involvement Plan) (Barcelona City Council, 2012). Today, this programme offers
unused and publicly owned vacant land to non-profit organisations and groups, aiming to
involve civil society in defining, installing and managing diverse activities. In the first phase
of the programme, 9 of the 14 available plots have been turned into community urban
gardens, managed by civic non-profit organisations following different social objectives.
Civil participation is central to these projects, as they are designed, proposed, implemented,
and managed by these local associations. Gardens emerging from Pla Buits complement an
existing municipal garden programme (Giacch
e and T
oth, 2013) and an active community
Kotsila et al. 9
garden movement that gained strength with the Spanish economic crisis in 2008 (Camps-
Calvet et al., 2016).
In the next section, we present an in-depth analysis of these two selected initiatives, which
are identified as NBS, in Barcelona. We focus our analysis on how these projects mirror and
sustain dominant discourse around NBS and how they expose its contradictions.
Tracing processes and outcomes of urban nature’s neoliberalisation: Two case studies of
NBS in Barcelona
Both our selected case studies aimed at creating better health and well-being and enhancing
social interaction, albeit in different ways, through the use of ‘nature’ – be it through street
trees or food orchards (Figure 1). These projects also had economic benefits in sight, as they
either attracted investment, or provided temporary maintenance of idle land during times of
recession. The motivations behind these projects thus indeed coincide with the triple-win
outcomes that are carried over from sustainability and that the NBS concept now proposes
and supports. We, here, examine how this discourse framed the production of the social,
ecological and economic benefits that these projects indeed brought, but also note the
counter-narratives and counter-practices that emerged responding to the neoliberal embedd-
edness of these projects.
Figure 1. Barcelona city area and canopy cover, with marked the locations of the two case studies
(Espai Germanetes, and Passeig Sant Joan, both in the Eixample district).
10 EPE: Nature and Space 0(0)
Green capitalising versus community-oriented urban ecologies in Passeig de Sant Joan (2009–2015).
The redevelopment of Ps. de Sant Joan was a project that coincided with the interest of
Barcelona City Council in urban green corridors. The project has been considered emblem-
atic for its innovative landscape architecture and praised for its ‘human’ and ‘quality’
approach to urban space via the use of green amenities such as raised beds, permeable
pavements, and small green spaces and playgrounds (Costa, 2016). It combines climate
change mitigation and adaptation features through run-off control and anti-heat stress
effects, noise control and microclimate regulation. However, what makes Ps. de Sant
Joan stand out for many of its supporters, as an exemplary NBS project, are the effects it
has had on transforming and boosting the local economy. These effects are closely con-
nected to the design of the intervention and particularly the distribution of open public
green space in close proximity to ground floor businesses. The decision for such a design was
the result of a constellation of public and private actors aligning their professional, institu-
tional and personal interests with the policy impulse for green infrastructure.
Originally, the 1.2 km of avenue along Ps.de Sant Joan was part of a concrete-dominated
street, with automobile circulation on both sides, connecting the Ciutadella Park (and the
Old Town) with the districts of Eixample and Gra
`cia. By the beginning of the 21st century,
however, parts of the avenue were showing signs of infrastructural degradation, with broken
sidewalks, neglected greenery and little control over business licences (Hoyos N
u~
nez, 2012).
Local residents and shop-owners also expressed concerns over its degradation. Meanwhile,
the broader Eixample district – with its high cultural tourism offerings (e.g. Sagrada
Familia) – was suffering from a lack of green space due to its extreme density and design
and from high car contamination. In terms of city branding and tourism attraction and
protection, the reconstruction of Ps. de Sant Joan was thus of increased significance.
At the same time as the discussion about redeveloping the avenue began, the lower strip
of the Eixample district (Fort Pienc) had started to gather an increasing number of shops
owned by Chinese immigrants (reflecting also the demographic trend in the area with 1 in
every 32 residents of Chinese origin). Many referred to it as the Barcelona Chinatown
(Castan, 2013). The proliferation of shops of Chinese-ownership was presented as part of
the neighbourhood’s degraded image and devaluation, via complaints and demonstrations
from local residents (Bernal and Castan, 2007). These were, however, contested by some
anti-racist groups (Sierra, 2007). A local official shared his view of Chinese businesses as
part of a problem that the renovation could address:
... The way that the Chinese shops were establishing in this area had some important effects on
the surroundings. Basically, due to an ignorance of the law and because these businesses needed
a lot of loading/offloading, and accumulated a lot of materials which carried a lot of risk of
fire ...And the truth is that aesthetically the Chinese shops of that time had little to offer. Now
there are a lot of different business types, but this has changed little by little, every day it
becomes better. But back then, someone could easily claim that this is degrading my surround-
ing. (Local official of Eixample district, interview 2017)
As a result, the municipal company ProEixample, supported by public and private capital
and founded in 1998, was tasked with leading the renovation of Ps. de Sant Joan, breaking
ground in 2009 to rebuild the avenue from its Southern strip (between Plaza Tetuan and Arc
de Triomf), where much of the ‘Chinatown’ conversion was taking place. A few years later,
the renovation moved on to the Northern strip (Diagonal Avenue – Plaza Tetuan) and
concluded in 2015. During this process, ProEixample started to enforce tighter regulations
regarding truck loading/offloading, which particularly affected the Chinese wholesale stores
Kotsila et al. 11
and actively drew food and drink businesses to the area by facilitating their access to green
terraces. This decision was taken after some participative workshops organised by local
district authorities. Dominated by non-Chinese bar and shop-owners and with little repre-
sentation of local residents groups, these meetings were motivated by local business prior-
ities to establish Ps. de Sant Joan as a quality brand (Hoyos N
u~
nez, 2012), following broader
municipal attempts in the 1990s to brand Barcelona as a beautiful, smart and attractive city
(Anguelovski, 2014).
The physical re-design of Ps. de Sant Joan was also not exempt from debate and criticism.
An interviewee, who was a member of a neighbours’ association stressed how a rambla
design with consolidated green space in the center of the street, would have been the
most beneficial form of public space for Eixample residents to gather, meet and hold
events. The rambla type was also identified by the Urban Ecology Agency of Barcelona
(BCNEcologia) as ideal for a green corridor (Agency staff, 24 May 2017), and its benefits in
terms of social use and appropriation have been since documented (Hoyos N
u~
nez, 2012).
However, this option was pushed aside in favour of expanded sidewalks (boulevard design)
with enhanced greenery, which allowed for better pedestrian access to street-level retail,
benefitting new bars and restaurants who can now use part of the sidewalk as their private
terraces (district officer, 10 July 2017). According to interviewees, weak community orga-
nisation in the Eixample district contributed to the domination of business interests:
We [residents] were against the [boulevard] solution that was adopted in the part below. We gave
our opinion because we were asked, but we couldn’t be part of the decisions ...the merchants
won. The merchants wanted broad sidewalks, in order for the bars to have terraces. The
neighbours as such were not really entering in those discussions. They were not organized.
They were not organized because participation is very ‘expensive’ for people. (Neighbours
Association, Sant Joan Avenue – Gra
`cia)
Although the decision for a boulevard was driven by a ‘top-down’, corporate-driven vision
by ProEixample, the anti-Chinese sentiment among some of the local stakeholders, and
interest in new types of businesses coming from localist agendas, did play a role in pushing
for such a decision. By 2016, more than 50 Chinese-owned stores had closed down, and real
estate agencies started advertising this part of town as free of ‘textile Chinatown’, speculat-
ing for ‘new hotels, cafes and other tourist services’ in Ps. de Sant Joan and nearby, adver-
tising the area as ‘a new destination for entrepreneurs and luxury hotels’.
6
Since then, Ps. de Sant Joan has been rebranded as a new foodie destination in both local
lifestyle and tourist-oriented media.
7
The most common businesses are now bars and restau-
rants (47 establishments), of which 32 have an open-air terraces, 13 can be classified as
trendy foodie venues,
8
and only eight count more than 10 years of operation (Giraldo
Malca, 2017). Significantly higher rents make it hard for traditional retail businesses to
survive, as has been noted by merchants of the area (Giraldo Malca, 2017). New businesses
that can invest in high rents aim at a higher-class clientele – a phenomenon described as food
gentrification (Anguelovski, 2015). Capturing the value created by new green elements and
innovative design, Ps. de Sant Joan is now being marketed as a green street by real estate
portals selling or renting upper-end apartments.
9
Turning Ps. de Sant Joan into a green corridor is a good example, on the one hand, of
ecology-oriented institutional knowledge taking hold and inserting sustainability priorities
in mainstream urban planning and design. It ticks the boxes of widely defined NBS criteria,
as it brings a number of ‘ecosystem services’, serves residents by improving their urban
experience, and attracts new businesses. However, on the other hand, ecosystem benefits
12 EPE: Nature and Space 0(0)
were not prioritised during the planning and implementation process, as evidenced by the
fact that the City Ecology Agency’s preferences were not heeded. Scrutinising its ‘triple-win’
outcomes, we find both winners and losers, with the distribution of benefits being partic-
ularly racialised and geared towards the big players of the local and global entertainment
and recreation economy. An alternative design with potentially greater ecological and
social benefits (rambla) was in this case side-lined in the name of economic revitalisation
and city branding.
Nature’s neoliberalisation in the case of Ps. de Sant Joan takes place within a context of
prioritisation of growth-oriented business interests in a global city positioned at the inter-
section of international flows of visitors, events and investments (Anguelovski, 2014). While
innovative characteristics of green/grey infrastructure are indeed making the project more
sustainable, they operate within this prioritisation at the expense of alternatives with poten-
tially greater or better-distributed socio-ecological benefits. Nature-based elements, in the
form of permeable pavements and street greenery, were discussed as a means to increase
regulation and maintenance of ecosystem services, but primarily intended as an investment
that would bring returns in the form of increased consumption and economic growth.
Transience as neoliberal tension in the counter-practices of urban gardening: The case of Espai
Germanetes (2012–ongoing). Urban gardens, and especially those based on grassroots orga-
nisation, are known for enacting and offering a new politics of urban space. They focus on
production and sharing rather than consumption and competitiveness. They promote social
cohesion, collective efficacy, inclusivity and overall wellbeing and health, while also chal-
lenging neoliberalism by opposing individualist, profit-oriented values and alienating human
relationships (Camps-Calvet et al., 2016; Guitart et al., 2012; Sany
e-Mengual et al., 2016;
Teig et al., 2009). And while these benefits are widely recognised by the Barcelona city
government – through a network of 15 municipality-supported allotment-based gardening
projects for the elderly and those at risk of social exclusion
10
– citizen-led gardening ini-
tiatives have an overall precarious status in Barcelona. Unsanctioned efforts have been
subject to fines by the municipality and are carried out under a constant fear of being
removed by the authorities (Giacch
e and T
oth, 2013).
In contrast, as described earlier, Pla Buits gardens are community-managed urban gar-
dens supported by the City Council via temporary land use rights and through the provision
of basic infrastructural materials (e.g. electricity and water). This type of ‘support but not
involvement’ is similar to the case for many community gardens, at least in Western coun-
tries (Rogge and Theesfeld, 2018). Citizen-led efforts within the Pla Buits programme are of
limited number and duration. Unlike guerrilla projects or permanently assigned allotment
city gardens, citizen groups enter an agreement with the municipality for a maximum three-
year time period, with no guarantees about what is to follow.
11
Importantly, this transience
is connected to the context of the 2008 economic crisis within which this policy was first
conceived and applied.
During the crisis period, the lack of investment funding and the tight city budgets caused
a halt in development projects. At the same time, the city was in the midst of anti-austerity
mobilisations that unified and reinforced social movements and right-to-the-city claims
(2008–2015). The first Pla Buits programme offered a win-win solution for a city adminis-
tration led by a center-right city council (formed by Converg
encia i Uni
o) eager to revalorise
unused urban land through temporary practices that could be easily removed (Barcelona
City Council, 2012), as has been the tendency in a number of cities in Europe (Demailly and
Darly, 2017; Ferreri, 2015). Such an initiative ensured the prevention of public land
Kotsila et al. 13
degradation and value deterioration, while satisfying part of emerging public demands,
which were increasingly expressed in the form of urban gardens on squatted land.
The attachment of those gardens to ‘win-win’ crisis politics and, as a consequence, their
short lifetime prospect, point to the neoliberal spirit of the Pla Buits policy as a whole, and
to the limitations that those garden projects are confronted with in terms of their social
transformation effect. Pla Buits gardens, thus, qualify as an exemplar urban NBS because
they use improvement in the natural environment to solve the problem of safeguarding the
value and aesthetic of publicly owned land – before such land can be turned into more
economically profitable projects. Their temporary status however relegates such activities to
a secondary status with low political priority, and this occurs despite high civic interest in
urban gardening. This dynamic dialectic, between Pla Buits as a neoliberal policy and Pla
buits gardens as a counter-practice to neoliberalism, is further illustrated by our case study
of Espai Germanetes
Espai Germanetes, located in the central Eixample district, grew out of the 2011 social
mobilisation of 15m activists, when a collective of neighbourhood residents decided to
occupy and propose a green-oriented and community-organised use for a 5000 m
2
vacant
plot belonging to the municipality, and which was historically occupied by the ancient
‘Convent of Germanetes’. In 2012, the municipality designated 585 m
2
of that plot to the
Pla Buits scheme and selected the Espai Germanetes as the winning project. This involved an
urban garden, as well as other spaces for social encounter, events and assemblies. As with
other Pla Buits projects, after three years of interim use, the plot was to be redeveloped into
public facilities (including a nursery, a primary school and social housing) and green space
(trees, park), for which social demand was also high in the neighbourhood. In that sense,
while it was not meant to be transformed into a private, speculative real estate development
(unlike other examples through the city), the project did trigger tensions and social mobi-
lisation among gardeners and other residents who highlighted the scarce availability of green
space in that area of the city, the large amount of empty, unused buildings which have the
potential to be reused for infrastructure, and the relative waste of time and resources that
had been dedicated to making the garden:
One thing is the urban garden as such, which is in the 500 m2 of Pla Buits, and another thing is
Parc Germanetes as an open space, which we have opened a year and a half ago. But from
the beginning they were saying it was provisional, because the developments had to be
built ...All this will be destroyed. For me it has been a huge waste of money. (Activist, resident
in Eixample, 2017)
Both before and after the establishment of the Pla Buits-supported project, local
collectives and resident groups debated whether the best option for the neighbourhood
was to introduce new grey infrastructure (school and other facilities), or to continue strug-
gling for the whole 5000 m
2
plot to remain a self-organised park. Municipal representatives
tended to not recognise the dichotomising tension and mostly downplayed the claims for a
self-managed garden and park, which along with other initiatives in the neighbourhood
(like a farmer’s market) began to be formulated against demands for other (grey) facilities
in Germanetes:
I think that everyone understands that a space, in a dense city like Barcelona, must be able to be
enjoyed in its many provisional and definitive facets, thinking about the public interest of the
city, and that if a school is to be built somewhere, because the school has higher priority in
relation to a community garden, for example, this is accepted. Projects must also be able to be
14 EPE: Nature and Space 0(0)
replaced. If there is a project that has a very strong social and community value and has a
space to develop, that is great. But often this project cannot stay indefinitely in that same place.
(City Council representative, participation sector, 2017)
In 2018, legitimate demands for a new school and other social facilities in the neighborhood,
met with legally binding agreements for development and the availability of funds, resulting
in the beginning of infrastructure constructions in the wider Germanetes plot.
During the time of our study, the Municipality declared a willingness, and indeed later
decided, to keep the 585 m
2
Espai Germanetes as a community-managed space. This was,
not least, due to the political significance this project had gained, as a symbolic initiative for
urban commons that promotes the values of citizens’ participation that the Barcelona en
com
ugovernment (2015 onwards) embraces. The counter-practices and counter-narratives
of citizens/activists within those gardens resisted the risk of non-permanence and managed
to insert grassroots demands in the recent measures adopted by the progressive city gov-
ernment. Most recently, the management of Espai Germanetes has been transferred to the
neighbourhood association ‘Jardins d’Emma’ which surfaced out of the movement for a
self-managed park. The project is now to be included in a new municipal policy around
urban gardening (‘Mans al verd, reserves per la biodiversitat’). At the same time, however,
the practice of gardening remains at the margins of urban planning in Barcelona, and is
therefore jeopardised by neoliberal forces at national and international scales, that cities
alone cannot counteract.
Discussion: The nuanced nature of urban greening interventions and
the power of concepts as reflected in the Barcelona case studies
Our key goal in this paper was to unpack NBS as a concept and a practice, examining the
ways in which projects that are identified as NBS carry the potential to be captured within
the neoliberal doctrine. We have substantiated this claim by looking at the discursive fram-
ing of the NBS concept and by analysing two projects that are considered to be successful
examples of NBS implementation.
On the discursive level, we find that NBS can provide opportunities for nature’s neo-
liberalisation while claiming sustainable outcomes; thus, they present the same unresolved
contradictions of sustainability, that are in turn directly linked to inequalities and injustices
(re)produced by neoliberal ideology (McCarthy and Prudham, 2004). For the same reasons
as precursor concepts such as ecosystem services or natural capital, NBS is seen as offering a
vision of planning that aligns with neoliberal governance and can thus assist the framing of
neoliberalism as a nature-friendly process. As jargon such as NBS is flexible and often
presented as politically neutral, it does not explicitly address the differential social values
and the contradictions of sustainability within a market-led political economy (Campbell,
1996). However, as our case studies also show, ‘umbrella concepts’ like NBS are inherently
political, since they represent ideological commitments, inform institutional practices, and
produce certain imaginaries of nature and its functions, (Kull et al., 2015) that can then be
contested by civic groups.
Our two selected cases of NBS in Barcelona displayed a dialectical relationship between
neoliberal city governance, on the one hand, and the counter-narratives and counter-
practices of local residents, on the other. Indeed, neoliberal ideology imbues urban envi-
ronmental governance and environmentalism in multiple ways, and is never free of contra-
dictions and contestations. The municipal and investors’ discourse around Ps. de Sant Joan
and the Pla Buits programme hinged on and reinforced a greening turn in the city, which
Kotsila et al. 15
coincided with a larger neoliberal agenda of the time (Anguelovski, 2014; March and
Ribera-Fumaz, 2016). Nevertheless, it also coincided with and formed part of contesting
neoliberalism through calls for reclamation of public urban space for people and for nature.
Resonating with previous findings about the hybrid and incomplete ways in which ‘neo-
liberalisation tendencies can only be articulated’ (Brenner et al., 2010), NBS-characterised
projects cannot be simply seen from the onset as overall good or bad; radical or superficial;
transformative or conservative. However, the underlying assumptions/prerequisites that
NBS definitions carry, especially in the European urban context, allow for neoliberal prac-
tices to seep in and obfuscate the very paths towards environmental, economic, and social
sustainability that NBS claim to be opening.
The reconstruction of Ps. de Sant Joan played the role of an ‘environmental fix’ (Castree,
2008a) in an overall densifying and car-oriented grey infrastructure, under the prefix of
green innovation and social-ecological connectivity. It provided the opportunity for alter-
native green visions of the urban environment to become reality (e.g. diverse varieties of
plants, reducing car lanes in favour of bike lanes and generous space for social encounter).
This change, however, would not have been enough to fulfil triple-win expectations that
NBS by definition seek. Such expectations were only realised by adding the opportunity for
green to be capitalised upon (offering pleasant green space to new ground-floor, trendy
businesses for tourists and visitors). It made access to urban nature significantly conditioned
by people’s willingness to sit in the terraces of bars and restaurants that surround it, both
because this was promoted as part of the urban green experience and because these busi-
nesses had appropriated a considerable part of the amenity. The spatial ‘consumption’
(Brand, 2007) of ecosystem services provided by the re-naturing intervention has been
thus conditioned by people’s ability to spend. As our findings demonstrate, the choice
between two different street designs was not equally desirable from, or beneficial for, all
stakeholders. People voiced their positive experience of a consolidated green rambla and
questioned the motives behind choosing a boulevard, but did not manage to make their
concerns heard.
Neoliberalisation in the case of Espai Germanetes was found both in the underlying logic
of the Pla Buits policy, and in the (otherwise counter-) practices of gardeners. In a context of
real estate speculation and dense urban development, community gardens in Barcleona, as
elsewhere, struggle ‘to find a permanent location in the neoliberal city’ (Demailly and Darly,
2017). The spirit of the Pla Buits was not aligned with long lasting demands of the neigh-
bourhood for public green space in close proximity, and the short-lived support it provided
did not prove enough to maintain the ecological and socio-political cultivations that are
taking place in community gardens. On the one hand, Espai Germanetes, as other commu-
nity gardens (see Classens, 2015; Perkins, 2011; Pudup, 2008; Rosol, 2012), has exhibited a
hands-on political ecology of praxis, resisting neoliberal roll-back mechanisms through
reclaiming urban space, functioning outside market-led ideologies and state bureaucracies,
and enhancing social cohesion and neighbourhood activity, solidarity, direct consumption
networks and socio-environmental activism for a different model of the city.
On the other hand, in a context of budgetary cuts, civic mobilisation and volunteerism
served also as ‘local entrepreneurialism’ or ‘civic stewardship’ (Colding and Barthel, 2013;
Langemeyer et al., 2018) that kept vacant land safe from crime, degradation and thus,
depreciation. And although those involved do not see volunteering work negatively (on
the contrary, it is cultivation and interaction that people enjoy and see as beneficial to
their health and wellbeing), feelings of disappointment and fear of space loss do arise
when gardens are conditioned by limited timeframes and threatened by extinction. This is
an anxiety-ridden existence that keeps gardeners incentivised to perform the role of
16 EPE: Nature and Space 0(0)
preserving the value of urban space in order to avoid the existential threat derived from their
precarious status. From the beginning, the temporary prospect created insecurity and demo-
tivated civic engagement. The squat movement that had claimed the overall Germanetes
space reformulated and rearticulated itself in order to enter the Pla Buits programme.
While this institutionalisation of the wider gardens movement in Barcelona can be seen as
a co-optation of grassroots claims for equitable green spaces beyond market logics (Perkins,
2009; Ferreri, 2015), it has also expanded the possibility for community involvement in
public policies. It showed the potential of interim gardens to act as seeds for a wider move-
ment of reclaiming the right to urban nature and triggered political debate on the prioriti-
sation of benefits that (public) urban space shall provide, counteracting neoliberal
hegemony and becoming permanent counter powers in the urban space. As a result, the
current progressive and assertively anti-neoliberal government took on the movement’s
claims and secured Espai Germanetes for gardening and social activities – beyond the Pla
Buits policy framework, in essence freeing it from the chains of precarity.
In sum, we claim, it is not the new concept of NBS per se that crafts neoliberalism into
urban greening/sustainability projects, but rather tendencies of (nature’s) neoliberalisation
are reflected in the promotion of concepts such as NBS, with the purpose to further solidify
neoliberal ideology into environmental/sustainability discourse and practice. Blurry bound-
ary concepts, like NBS, serve as vehicles to enforce neoliberal ideology within local city
agendas, where they may resonate (Ps. de Sant Joan) or be disputed (Espai Germanetes).
More explicitly, it is unlikely that Germanetes would qualify as NBS if it continued to be a
guerrilla community garden/space, without the (initially temporary) municipal support
through the Pla Buits programme. It is equally unlikely that Ps. de Sant Joan would have
received such praise, if it weren’t also meant to completely transform the local business
environment around it.
Concluding remarks: Can NBS escape neoliberal ideology?
Would processes of nature’s neoliberalisation be taking place even without the emergence of
concepts conducive to justify and support it? Probably yes, but what we importantly observe
is how such concepts can serve as discursive tools for shaping and disciplining social activ-
ities that are not market-oriented, through justifying a certain choice of green projects and
designs over others. While there is room for counter-narratives and counter-practices within
NBS, the concept is often discursively mobilised in such a way as to privilege neoliberal
values (such as a focus on quantifiable benefits, profit, quick economic returns and growth)
within urban nature’s governance. That is, except when governments are explicitly anti-
neoliberal. As a result, the contradictions, conflicts and trade-offs that urban planning
involves are often concealed through a loosely defined and apolitical conceptualisation of
nature and of social benefits – this condition is carried over within the NBS concept.
As our case studies demonstrate, NBS practices are continuously shaped and contested in
society. Their contradictions, challenges and contestations should no longer escape academ-
ic or policy discussions around nature-based interventions and urban re-naturing. Nature-
based solutions as a term can be recaptured to work more towards radical socio-ecological
transformations if it escapes the ‘no alternative’ logic of neoliberalism. But to achieve this,
critical researchers engaging with issues of climate change adaptation and sustainability
should no longer shy away from normatively re-defining what could qualify as (urban)
nature-based ‘solution’, and these definitions should align more with demands that come
from socio-environmental movements and scholarly ideas of a different (than economics or
engineering) tradition. In such manner, future visions of, re-naturing and biodiversity could
Kotsila et al. 17
compliment and inform visions for emancipation, equity and justice that go beyond neo-
liberal capitalism.
Highlights
•‘Nature-based solutions’ is a concept that could assist the framing of neoliberalism as a
nature-friendly process.
•Tendencies of urban nature’s neoliberalisation can be evidenced in the implementation of
projects that qualify as nature-based solutions.
•These tendencies are contested in various social arenas and especially by grassroots
initiatives, even as they are part of nature-based solutions implementation.
Author note
Isabelle Anguelovski is also affiliated to Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies
(ICREA), Spain.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article: The authors acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of
Science, Innovation and Universities, through the “Mar
ıa de Maeztu” program for Units of Excellence
(MDM-2015-0552), for James Connolly through the Juan de la Cierva program (IJCI-2016-31100),
and for Johannes Langemeyer and Francesc Bar
o through the 2015-2016 BiodivERsA COFUND call
for research proposals. Authors also acknowledge the support of the Naturvation (NATure-based
URban innoVATION) project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innova-
tion programme under grant agreement No. 730243, and the ERC Starting Grant GreenLULUs
(GA678034).
Notes
1. E.g. programmes within the EU, the UN, the International Center for Climate Change and
Development, the International Institute for Environment and Development.
2. According to a search on CORDIS website on 7 March 2019: https://cordis.europa.eu/en
3. For Harvey (2007), neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices
which proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepre-
neurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterised by strong private
property rights, free markets and free trade (p.2).
4. We can distinguish between ‘roll-back’ (deregulation) and ‘roll-out’ (re-regulation) neoliberalism
in the processes that re-shape the role and function of the state in managing its social and eco-
nomic affairs. According to Perkins (2011), neoliberal ideology generally pushes the ‘integral
state’s civil sector’ towards a management that focuses on profit rather than equity. Whereas in
‘roll-back’ neoliberal shifts, this happens through privatisations (marketisation or deregulation) of
previously welfarist and social-collectivist institutions, ‘roll-out’ neoliberalism is characterised by
re-regulation and the establishment of neoliberal logics within ‘state forms, modes of governance,
and regulatory relations’ (Peck and Tickell, 2002).
18 EPE: Nature and Space 0(0)
5. Borrowing from colleagues in Norway who use the term ‘greenmentality’ to describe how a global
push for greening economy and development has shaped processes of governance in the Global
South (see: https://greenmentality.org/about/).
6. See https://www.oirealtor.com/noticias-inmobiliarias/el-textil-cede-paso-a-la-hosteleria-en-la-calle-
trafalgar/.
7. See https://scandinaviantraveler.com/en/places/trendy-in-barcelona-passeig-de-sant-joan; or: https://
www.cntraveler.com/gallery/best-tapas-bars-in-barcelona.
8. That is, brunch-type restaurants such as Firebug, or restaurants from renown Catalan chefs such
as Arroz Hoffman.
9. See https://www.spanishpropertyinsight.com/2016/12/16/barcelona-insight-smart-buyers-choose-
passeig-de-sant-joan/.
10. https://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/ecologiaurbana/ca/serveis/la-ciutat-funciona/manteniment-de-l-
espai-public/gestio-del-verd-i-biodiversitat/horts-urbans.
11. Also Pla Buits gardens are responses to a policy, rather than self-initiated, and they necessitate
legally recognised associations to stand as proposing entities. Therefore access to them is limited
to, or bounded by, who is the proposing body.
ORCID iD
Panagiota Kotsila https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0498-8362
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