5.5.3 Developing a rights-based approach to equitable and environmentally sustainable development


A rights-based approach to social and environmental challenges has dominated much of the urban discussion during the first two decades of the twenty-first century, both in relation to the right to the city and rights in the city (United Nations 2017). The call to action by the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (United Nations 2015) and the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) reflected this desire for inclusivity. In recent years, social movements, thinkers and progressive local authorities alike have included a rights-based ethics approach into planning and governance as a means to co-create transformative change through renewed social contracts that hold socioenvironmental justice at their core.


Several cities across the world have adopted a rights- based approach to articulate environmental sustainability and social equity questions through their resource allocation, policies, programmes and projects. Participatory approaches and citizen engagement are needed to support such an approach. The case study of Rosario, Argentina (Box 5.7), exemplifies how a city rights-based approach can mature over time to give voice to those typically marginalized and to protect common values across different spheres of urban life. Fostered over 20 years of continuous commitment to decentralization, transparency, accountability and participation, Rosario developed a broad vision towards achieving equity and sustainability, along with a democratically-grounded process that drives the city’s strategic planning for the whole metropolitan area.


One of the most significant achievements of Rosario – and other cities committed to incorporating social justice into their planning processes – lies in their capacity to reverse


previously established municipal priorities and long-term trends of underinvestment in the urban poor and nature- positive solutions. As argued by Cabannes (2014) such “reversion” implies shifting political and territorial priorities by enabling those previously excluded to co-participate in decision-making and by ensuring historical investments that previously did not reach poor neighborhoods and adjacent rural areas now do.


5.5.4 Seeking environmental sustainability and equity beyond the city


One of the most difficult challenges faced by cities worldwide is to decouple their prosperity from the appropriation of natural assets and the displacement of unwanted impacts to distant “elsewheres” through their large ecological footprints (Allen 2014). If this trend remains unaddressed, the impact of cities on interregional and intergenerational justice will continue to go unchallenged.


Seeking environmental sustainability and equity beyond the city requires taking into account how material flows work in the face of wider social, ecological and technical systems (McPhearson et al. 2016). As shown in previous sections, this aim can be greatly advanced through decarbonization and circularity. Due to the often-insurmountable difficulties for a city to work on its own to close material loops, shift to renewable energy sources, increase reuse and recycling of materials or lower the CO2


footprint of its economic


activities, it is not surprising that most initiatives in this area rely on networks that work to increase such innovative changes around the world. Examples include the C40 network, a worldwide coalition of 94 cities committed to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions (Poon 2019).12


Although it is too early to assess the impact of


such initiatives in fostering change into wider groups of cities, when socially anchored, these networks can open


12 By 2019, about 30 cities within C40 reported to have curbed emissions by 22 per cent on average. Berlin, London and Madrid lowered their emissions by 30 per cent, with Copenhagen reaching a dramatic 61 per cent, though in relative terms, its peak emission levels were historically significantly lower than those of other cities in the coalition (Poon 2019).


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GEO for Cities


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