How distributive injustice is produced in nature-based solutions: Institutional pathways across three Brazilian cities

Abstract

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) have been promoted as promising instruments for climate adaptation and the strengthening of urban resilience, particularly in the Global South. However, evidence indicates that their implementation may reproduce or deepen socio-spatial inequalities when justice criteria are not consistently incorporated into decision-making processes. We investigate how distributive injustices associated with NbS are produced prior to implementation, through institutional arrangements that structure decision-making in urban policies. We propose the Justice Production Cascade Framework, which conceives the procedural, recognition, and distributive dimensions of environmental justice as interdependent stages of a single causal chain. The framework makes it possible to trace how decision-making arenas, institutional knowledge filters, and categories of recognition shape, from the early stages of the public policy cycle, the territorial patterns of NbS allocation. We apply the framework to three Brazilian cities: São Paulo, Campinas, and São José dos Campos. The results show that distributive injustice does not primarily stem from implementation failures, but from the cumulative effect of procedural decisions and recognition mechanisms that stabilize unequal spatial trajectories. By shifting the analytical focus from the late-stage assessment of distributive effects to an understanding of their institutional production, we seek to advance the debate on environmental justice in NbS. We argue that the Global South offers a privileged lens to render these mechanisms visible, with relevant implications for the science-policy interface and for the design of more just policies.