Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are a priority area for the European Commission. The European Union (EU) will fund projects on NbS under Horizon Europe, the EU's framework program for research and innovation (2021–2027). We argue that the Commission needs to fund more projects that actively include local communities in the development and implementation of NbS. Specifically, the Commission needs to fund projects that include two oft-forgotten stakeholder groups: women and indigenous peoples. The literature demonstrates that success of NbS is dependent on the inclusion of a variety of stakeholders and that indigenous peoples and women and girls are critically important stakeholders. As the inclusion of these stakeholders is vital to the success of NbS, funding projects that specifically include these stakeholders will help the EU to achieve two important policy goals: the goal to provide evidence for NbS and the goal to advance the development, uptake and upscale of NbS.
The capacity of cross-sector collaboration to create meaningful change across social–ecological levels has long been understood in public health. But the ability of cross-sector collaboration to achieve systemic change around the structural determinants of health remains complicated. In 2021, now more than ever, we understand the imperative of strengthening the capacity of collaborative efforts to address the myriad structural health crises facing our communities, from police violence and mass incarceration to Jim Crow laws and redlining, to urban renewal and environmental injustice. Our proposed collective healing framework brings together the collective impact model and radical healing framework to offer a blueprint for cross-sector collaboration that understands the practices of healing to be at the center of public health collaborations and public health practice at large. In this framework, public health practitioners and our collaborators are asked to prioritize relationship building, engage in critical self-reflection, to move beyond compromise, to address differences, to interrogate traditional metrics and approaches, to remake the collective table, and to build shared understanding through action.
In February 2022, the United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA) is expected to mandate negotiations for a legally binding plastic agreement. In preparations for such discussions, it is important to understand the academic research behind what a global treaty on plastic will require to succeed. Therefore, a systematic literature review was conducted on 64 peer-reviewed articles published before July 4th, 2021, that focused on global plastic governance and avenues to mitigate our pollution crisis. Once reviewed, the articles were organized into a series of four main categories: (1) plastic pollution overview articles, (2) top-down solutions, (3) bottom-up solutions, and finally a (4) global treaty as a solution. The analysis of these articles enabled an overarching review and discussion of what the literature suggested is required for the creation of a global plastics agreement. First, the researchers argued that previous global plastics governance literature is characterized by an optimist governance perspective, i.e., a view of governance as a problem-solving mechanism. Second, global plastics governance as a research field could make headway by engaging in further empirical investigation of current negotiations and solutions at the national level, especially in developing nations. In the end we found that a global agreement is feasible if it allows for multi-stakeholder solutions involving industry, governance, stakeholders, and citizens.
In this study, we conducted and documented workshops and interviews in Norway and Slovenia to identify stakeholder and future generation opinions and mitigation strategies for solving one of the most prominent environmental issues: plastic pollution. As part of the EU H2020 project GoJelly, stakeholders were brought together to explore their perceptions on considering jellyfish mucus as a new resource to contribute to reducing plastic pollution from entering the marine environment. The study was conducted in the spring of 2019, in a context directly after the European Union (EU) announced its Directive to ban the most commonly used single-use plastic (SUP) items. The study applied the snowball method as a methodological choice to identify relevant stakeholders. Systems thinking was utilized as a participatory modelling approach, which allowed for the creation of conceptual mind maps from the various workshops and interviews, to understand consumers' consciousness, and to map out ideas on plastic pollution reduction. Plastic pollution takes place on a global scale and stakeholders discussed their individual perceptions of national and international solutions that could be put in place to solve it, including the opportunities around utilizing jellyfish mucus to filter and capture micro- and nanoplastic. We found that industry stakeholders in both case areas were generally more accepting of policy and increased innovation moving forward, but placed weight on the scientific community to conduct more research on the pollution issue and propose solutions. Future generation stakeholders (youth aged 14–18), however, put emphasis on consumer behavior and buying patterns of single-use products fueling the plastic crisis.
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