Scaling Up NbS: Are We Ready to Unleash Nature's Full Potential?
20. October 11:00 - 12:15
Effectively addressing the adverse impacts of climate change demands a substantial upscaling of Nature-Based Solutions (NbS). This session focuses on the cornerstones that underpin the upscaling process of NbS, emphasizing standardization procedures, ground-breaking research, policy frameworks, and the successful execution of NbS projects, all contributing to the global expansion of NbS initiatives.
This session is part of the Mainstreaming solutions for a just transformative pathway: an integrated approach to resilience stream.
Speakers
Vice Chair CEN/TC 465
Dario Esposito, Vice Chair CEN/TC 465
Dario Esposito, PhD in Risk and Environmental Territorial and Building Development, currently serves as a research fellow at the Polytechnic University of Bari (Italy), where he teaches Environmental and Territorial Engineering. He is an innovation researcher and practitioner deeply passionate about policy design, systems modeling, and social practices, and their pivotal role in driving transformative changes in cities and society, creating more livable and healthier urban environments. His research expertise spans urban science, spatial analysis, modeling, decision support system design, and disaster risk reduction. Driven by a commitment to sustainable and resilient development, he develops participatory processes and computational approaches to assess and improve the use of places and infrastructure, with a strong emphasis on human factors, spatial cognition, and local knowledge. Additionally, Dario Esposito serves as the vice-chair of Technical Commission No. 465 for Sustainable Cities and Communities within the European Committee for Standardization. In this capacity, he has employed expertise in management systems for sustainable community development, city services, and enhancing the quality of life, in alignment with ISO 371xx standards.
Director, Urban Transitions Mission
Giorgia Rambelli, Director, Urban Transitions Mission
Giorgia has over 13 years of experience in the fields of climate and energy to support local and subnational governments in developing sound policies, science-based and data driven plans and solutions in response to the challenges of climate change. Giorgia worked as the Coordinator for climate policy and energy governance at the European Secretariat of ICLEI- Local Governments for Sustainability. Giorgia has worked with the Global Covenant of Mayors (GCoM) Secretariat since 2020, where she led the work on Global-Regional Coherence and Coordination, working to support the GCoM alliance partners to implement the mission and vision of the GCoM across the world, while respecting Regional and national contexts.
Senior Fellow, Ecologic Institute, Berlin
Doris Knoblauch, Senior Fellow, Ecologic Institute, Berlin
Doris Knoblauch joined Ecologic Institute in January 2006 and works as a Senior Fellow and Coordinator for Urban & Spatial Governance. Thematically, she focuses on green urban environments, local climate protection as well as public participation and the analysis of networks and network processes.
Since 2012, Doris Knoblauch has worked intensively with cities and municipalities. Thereby, she has not only built up a network of different cities and municipalities as well as relevant actors, but also gathered a deep understanding of the functioning and needs of communities. In her work, she appreciates when science can be of practical use for communities and results are directly implemented to solving on-the-ground problems.
Doris Knoblauch currently is part of the project INTERLACE (https://www.ecologic.eu/17542), CLEVER Cities (https://www.ecologic.eu/15681) and Ready4NetZero (https://www.ecologic.eu/18973).
Senior researcher, Aarhus University
Marianne Zandersen,Senior researcher, Aarhus University
Marianne is an environmental economist and senior researcher at Aarhus University in Denmark, focusing on environmental and behavioral economics in the fields of urban and peri-urban systems, nature-based solutions, climate change and ecosystem management. She is currently the coordinator of the H2020 project ‘REGREEN’ (2019-2024) on fostering nature-based solutions for equitable, green and healthy urban transitions in Europe and China and a Work Package lead on the HEU project ‘Invest4Nature’ (2022-2026). She is also part of the European Topic Center on Climate Change Adaptation and LULUCF, having contributed to two EEA reports of interest for climate resilience: ‘Urban adaptation to climate change in Europe’ and ‘Nature-based solutions in Europe: Policy, knowledge and practice for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction’ A chapter on nature-based solutions for strengthening urban resilience has been recently published in the book ‘Die Resiliente Stadt’ (Springer).
Moderator
Officer, Urban Resilience and Climate Adaptation, Sustainable Resources, Climate and Resilience, ICLEI Europe
Elena Petsani, Officer, Urban Resilience and Climate Adaptation, Sustainable Resources, Climate and Resilience, ICLEI Europe
Elena Petsani is an Urban Resilience & Sustainability Planner (MSc & MEng.). She has professional background with over five years of experience in inclusive and climate-resilient urban development, sustainability strategies, policy-making, and academic research at the national and local government level. She has supported strategic urban planning and territorial development, climate adaptation policies, and spatial tools for multi-stakeholder engagement in the decision-making process. Elena is involved in EU funded projects focused on adaptation to climate change and Nature Based Solutions such as REGREEN, proGIreg, REGILIENCE, and MULTISOURCE.