A joint climate action needed for sustainable management of urban greenspace

Novel insights are needed to join the joint climate action in order to protect our urban greenspace in Bangladesh, which has only a few urban parks remaining, like the Justice Shahabuddin Park in Dhaka. Photo: TBS

The major share of greenhouse gas emissions originates from urban areas. To that end, it is crucial to look at urban parks, which play a significant role in cooling the city's environment. 

These greenspace facilities are widely used for exercise and family time; and expose citizens to nature. Contributing to the sustainability of the facilities of our urban greenspace can help us contribute to the global pursuit of sustainable development goals (SDGs). 

Some of the ways to contribute to this larger goal include focusing on 'good health and well-being,' 'sustainable cities and communities,' 'responsible consumption' (i.e., using park facilities responsibly while preserving them for future generations), 'climate action,' and 'life on land' (e.g., improving the habitats within these parks).

However, encouraging stakeholders to voluntarily contribute can be challenging. This is why clear and practical communication about the importance of voluntary services is essential. Additionally, taking responsibility for the proper use and preservation of urban parks is urgently needed.

Despite this urgency to protect the urban greenspace, many countries face challenges to do so. And the challenges across different countries also vary. For example, CBS News reported in December 2023 that "over 1,000 New York City park workers are expected to lose their jobs due to budget cuts." In North-East England, the "parks budget has been reduced by over 90% (since 2014), meaning that finding new ways of financing and running the city's parks is essential." 

A 2023 research paper published in the Jahangirnagar Review argues that in Bangladesh, a major challenge to preserving the urban greenspace is that "urban parks are being demolished due to urban development." 

Another 2022 study conducted by researchers at the Bangladesh University of Professionals, Asian Development Bank, and Jahangirnagar University, and published in the Environmental Challenges, reveals that "urbanisation is the main driving force for the loss of greenspace (in Bangladesh)," and resulted in that our Dhaka city "lost 56% greenspace between 1989 and 2020."

To address this critical ecological challenge, government and non-government stakeholders across countries, who are responsible for managing urban parks, are increasingly moving towards more community engagement and voluntary contribution from park users.

Such urban parks' facilities include but are not limited to, flowerbed management, trimming trees, cleaning the parks, repairing parks' electric lines, biodiversity management, kids' nature education, and digital operation of these urban parks.  Thus, we need volunteers from different stakeholder groups (e.g., from different groups of park users) to address this major environmental challenge in order to manage our urban greenspace sustainably. 

It is, therefore, important to understand how different stakeholder groups could be nudged pragmatically to engage and increase their voluntary contribution for park management. 

Research demonstrates that "communications about the nature of the climate change threat could also help establish behaviour change in citizens." Marketing communication therefore represents a key means of influencing the behaviours of the target audience. 

However, creating public awareness about climate change won't be sufficient to nudge stakeholders and attract enough active volunteers unless stakeholder-specific behavioural prompts can be identified for targeted communication. 

Since sustainable consumption, i.e., consuming and preserving the greenspace facilities, is increasingly essential in addressing climate change, a research project at Northumbria University in the UK is currently underway on sustainable management of urban greenspace. 

It aims to understand how analysing stakeholders' relationships and interactions with the city parks in the city of Newcastle can identify stakeholder-specific perceived (park) usage experience and their behavioural prompts, which in turn could nudge these users to engage and increase their voluntary contributions. 

The early findings of this Northumbria project demonstrate that if park users and stakeholders can be nudged based on stakeholder-specific psychological or materialistic benefit, they will volunteer enthusiastically. The project categorises stakeholder group-specific materialistic benefits as behavioural prompts that can nudge stakeholders to engage and increase their voluntary contribution for park management, and reposition the parks in stakeholders' minds as a source of further benefits, in addition to mingling with nature. 

For example:  

• Biodiversity scientists at local universities would be happy to volunteer for a free education project for children on biodiversity, as it enables the scientists not only to educate kids about nature but also to enable them to spend more time on their research sites, i.e., the parks, in order to understand the biodiversity further. 
• Flower enthusiast groups would like to volunteer for flowerbed management at local parks.
• Colleges/universities would be interested in appointing their electric-work apprentices to repair the parks' electric lines to offer hands-on experience to their students. Similarly, digital business or computer science students would be interested in volunteering as interns to manage the parks' digital platforms for a certain period of time. 
• Planting fruits and vegetables in conserved areas of local parks and selling them by local community groups can engage them with park management, e.g., cleaning the local parks in return for their financial benefits based on selling those fruits and vegetables. 

For market embeddedness of this approach, recent empirical research findings from eco-city management research argue that the traditional community-orientated approach of producing and selling firm-fresh fruits and vegetables has regained popularity in urban regions.

Once the different groups of urban park users will see more materialistic benefits in return to their voluntary contribution, they will have more motivation for a joint climate action. Since more and more people are becoming socially and environmentally concerned, they would be self-satisfied to associate with such projects to increase their contribution to greenspace management. 

A 2024 research paper published in the Urbanization, Sustainability and Society argues that the "city authorities in Bangladesh are concerned about urban sustainability. However,  they often face difficulties in addressing predominant urban challenges threatening urban sustainability due to limited relevant literature (i.e., limited research on this topic in Bangladesh)."

The Northumbria research project to sustainably manage Newcastle's parks can be adapted to the Bangladeshi context to protect our urban greenspace. For this adaptation, research projects should be undertaken to understand the Bangladeshi context-specific behavioural prompts in order to drive the local park users to engage and increase their voluntary contributions to manage our parks. 

Dr Riad Shams. TBS Sketch.

Dr Riad Shams is Assistant Professor and Head of PhD Program at the Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, UK. 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.