A participatory urban governance framework: the protection of urban ecosystems’ functions as a barometer for transitioning towards sustainability.

Abstract

Research into ways of helping decision-makers to better integrate the notion of sustainability when designing strategies have focused on reforming the main economic indicators (such as GDP) since at least the 1990s. From greening the accounts, efforts progressively turned into creating ‘ecosystems accounts’. The dominant approach, developed by the United Nations, led to the creation of the System of Environmental and Economic Account - Ecosystem Experimental Accounts (SEEA EEA), ‘satellites’ to the main economic accounts. Although mainly used in industrialised countries, these are starting to be more widely used. This article focuses on the urgent need to make our cities (sometimes described as a microcosm of our economic systems) more sustainable and explores to what extent ecosystems accounts could help in this endeavour. However, it approaches the issue differently from what has been done so far in that it advocates considering the city itself as a socio-ecological-economic ecosystem, with its own environmental functions, whose protection will help to identify whether urban transitions are moving towards sustainability. In addition, it explores taking social considerations into account by making the use of the urban ecosystems framework presented here participatory. It thus shows how such a decision-making tool can be used iteratively to contribute to adaptive governance for urban transitions towards sustainability and highlights how such a framework can facilitate potential partnerships and make the economy more cooperative and circular. It concludes by suggesting a practical application focused on food security and demonstrates how this is strongly linked to urban resilience and sustainability.