Addressing climate change in cities: Policy instruments to promote urban nature-based solutions

This guidance document responds to gaps and highlights a range of policy and supporting instruments relevant for NbS design, implementation and maintenance. Policy instruments include regulations, strategies, programmes, action plans and financial incentives. Each instrument is briefly described, including how it works and what benefits it can deliver. Case studies showcasing how different cities approach NbS and foster their integration into their policy frameworks are presented for each instrument. Wherever possible, the case studies stem from Berlin and Leipzig, Germany to showcase the diverse set of policy instruments being used in each city to implement NbS. Berlin and Leipzig’s policy landscapes are introduced below in more detail to present a snapshot of possible policy instruments to foster NbS, highlighting the importance of working in an integrated and cross-sectoral manner.

This policy document was produced as part of the project “Climate NbS Poland”, supported by the European Climate Initiative of the German Ministry of Environment, to support Polish city officials in the design and implementation of such policy instruments for increased NbS implementation. This policy guide is complemented by the publication Addressing Climate Change in Cities – Catalogue of urban nature-based solutions (therewith referred to as Catalogue of urban NbS), which aims to support planners, designers and landscape architects in various sized urban areas in Europe and beyond in applying NbS instead of or alongside traditional grey infrastructure approaches (Iwaszuk et al., 2019).