What does good GI policy look like?

Alister Scott and Max Hislop use a hybridised policy analysis tool to assess the breadth and depth of green infrastructure policy in the revised National Planning Policy Framework for England

What Does Good Green Infrastructure Planning Policy Look Like? Developing and Testing a Policy Assessment Tool Within Central Scotland UK

This paper develops and tests a new self-assessment policy tool that illuminates the quality of planning policy for green infrastructure (GI). Working with 19 local planning authorities within the UK Central Scotland Green Network area (CSGN), the multi-functional coverage and strength of GI policies in statutory development plans were assessed. The tool was built from fusing two existing but unrelated initiatives addressing GI standards; Building with Nature and Integrating Green Infrastructure (IGI). The results reveal surprising variation across the functional coverage of GI-related policy and strength of associated policy wording, suggesting a significant vulnerability for how GI is mainstreamed in decision-making processes. To address this knowledge exchange deficit, the best performing policies were captured and adapted to inform a suite of model policies with global application. Significantly, the policies champion the different functions performed by GI and stress the need for early and ongoing involvement throughout any development process with funding for long-term stewardship post-development. The results serve as a catalyst for improved dialogue and social learning across planning, and wider built/natural environment teams and professions to plug identified policy gaps. In particular, there is recognition of the need for planning policy responses to move outside their usual environmental remit and engage with other policy sectors using more holistic policy hooks such as placemaking, placekeeping and the climate emergency. We argue that this tool has universal applicability in many planning systems for improving the policy response and imperative for GI, thereby increasing the potential for better spatial planning delivery

NCPT – managing environmental gains and losses

How a new practical tool enables non-specialists to systematically assess and manage planning and development impacts on natural capital

Emergency Department Clinicians’ Attitudes Toward Opioid Use Disorder and Emergency Department-initiated Buprenorphine Treatment: A Mixed-Methods Study

Introduction: Emergency department (ED) visits related to opioid use disorder (OUD) have increased nearly twofold over the last decade. Treatment with buprenorphine has been demonstrated to decrease opioid-related overdose deaths. In this study, we aimed to better understand ED clinicians’ attitudes toward the initiation of buprenorphine treatment in the ED.Methods: We performed a mixed-methods study consisting of a survey of 174 ED clinicians (attending physicians, residents, and physician assistants) and semi-structured interviews with 17 attending emergency physicians at a tertiary-care academic hospital.Results: A total of 93 ED clinicians (53% of those contacted) completed the survey. While 80% of respondents agreed that buprenorphine should be administered in the ED for patients requesting treatment, only 44% felt that they were prepared to discuss medication for addiction treatment. Compared to clinicians with fewer than five years of practice, those with greater experience were less likely to approve of ED-initiated buprenorphine. In our qualitative analysis, physicians had differing perspectives on the role that the ED should play in treating OUD. Most physicians felt that a buprenorphine-based intervention in the ED would be feasible with institutional support, including training opportunities, protocol support within the electronic health record, counseling and support staff, and a robust referral system for outpatient follow-up.Conclusion: ED clinicians’ perception of buprenorphine varied by years of practice and training level. Most ED clinicians did not feel prepared to initiate buprenorphine in the ED. Qualitative interviews identified several addressable barriers to ED-initiated buprenorphine

Ecosystem service multifunctionality and trade-offs in English Green Belt peri-urban planning

Green Belt policies govern peri-urban landscapes globally by restricting built development. Yet, they often have little consideration for the land within them. This is especially the case in England where ecosystem services are poorly accounted for in Green Belt policy, whilst also being viewed as a development obstacle, with few environmental and social benefits; a situation mirrored in peri-urban landscapes globally. Moreover, there is a significant research gap into Green Belts through the socio-ecological lenses of ecosystem services and multifunctionality, which allows populist discourses to go unchallenged. Using modelling and participatory mapping data this paper addresses this gap by quantifying the ecosystem service supply, trade-offs and multifunctionality of the North-East Green Belt, and the wider planning and policy implications. The results show that contrary to claims, Green Belts in England can and do provide multiple benefits to people when studied through these lenses. However, levels of individual ecosystem services and overall multifunctionality differ spatially within Green Belts resulting in opportunity areas as well as potential losses of ecosystem services from development. Areas of deciduous and coniferous woodland as well as key “green wedges” close to urban populations were found to be multifunctionality “hots-spots”, whereas arable and improved grassland provide notable “cold-spots”. Trade-offs were mostly from provisioning services. We argue that Green Belt policies explicitly and holistically accounting for ecosystem services could catalyse a multifunctional opportunity space for climate, nature and people in peri-urban landscapes. Additionally, our study demonstrates the conceptual merits of ecosystem service multifunctionality for planning.This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council funded ONE Planet Doctoral Training Partnership [NE/ S007512/1]

Mainstreaming the Environment: Exploring pathways and narratives to improve policy and decision‐making

1. Mainstreaming is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary endeavour of normalising an idea from one policy domain into the decision-making and routine activities of other policy domains necessary for effective delivery over the long term. 2. The desire to mainstream springs from an increasing acceptance of the need for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to tackle key societal challenges such as climate change and biodiversity decline. Here, traditional policy and disciplinary silos are broken down to pursue and deliver more holistic interventions. 3. This paper offers an additionality perspective to mainstreaming based on four questions. What is mainstreaming and what additionality does it offer for environmental policy and practice? What theoretical insights emerge from the mainstreaming and associated literatures? How can mainstreaming processes and outcomes be conceptualised and assessed? How can we improve future environmental mainstreaming pathways? 4. Building from literatures focussed on mainstreaming and policy integration, we construct a framework and supporting narrative focussing on the lifecycle dynamics of mainstreaming pathways; a significant research gap. Their nonlinear progress is captured using theoretical adaptations of diffusion of innovation and sustainability, moving from initial innovation through to persuasion and to acceptance pathways, with progress dependent on the interplay and impacts of hooks and barriers and the degree of collaboration and system change pursued. 5. Our narrative is further illuminated using natural capital and ecosystem services which reveal that while some progress has been made primarily through weaker mainstreaming pathways, current efforts are still focussed on ‘persuading’ stakeholders of the environment's value, rather than on initial framing and governance arrangements to maximise future impact. 6. We conclude that the framing and development of natural capital and ecosystem services primarily in the environment and economic sectors has limited mainstreaming activity to wider audiences due to the lack of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches being pursued from the outset, including a more publicly and professionally accessible vocabulary and collaborative governance and decision-making structures. 7. We contend that our lifecycle narrative, with a focus on multiple pathways, hooks, barriers and collaboration makes a useful contribution to understanding mainstreaming dynamics and characteristics from which improved interventions can be developed