Nature-based solutions in the urban environment – preliminary observations from the Med-IREN project

Blog post by Project Manager Ville Santala, Forum Virium Helsinki

Helsinki’s focus on combating heatwaves

The City of Helsinki has ambitious climate goals, and the city is also striving to adapt to the effects of climate change, focusing on mitigating extreme weather events and their indirect impacts.

In the Med-IREN project, Helsinki’s objectives are related to nature-based solutions connected to the built environment and their impact, especially in combating the effects of heatwaves and the urban heat island effect. The goal is to create new knowledge and tools to support the implementation of nature-based solutions to mitigate the effects of heatwaves. At the same time, the project seeks to support the work of local actors in adapting to climate change regarding heat mitigation and to share knowledge and lessons learned about the implementation and benefits of nature-based solutions in the built environment.

During the project, Forum Virium Helsinki actively seeks to promote the development of tools and new functionalities related to the city’s digital twin. For example, with the help of the project, the city can gain new ways to measure and monitor urban greenery and to evaluate and simulate the effectiveness of different nature-based solutions.

Workshops for defining project goals

The Med-IREN project utilises the PPCP (public-private-civil partnership) method to engage key stakeholders and co-create solutions. The goal is to bring together different actors to disseminate the best practices and define common goals from the perspective of climate change adaptation, as well as to increase and share the knowledge and expertise of different stakeholders regarding nature-based solutions and the factors enabling their implementation.

The project started in October 2024, and during the first calendar year, thorough preparatory work was done to map out common starting points and key perspectives. A central part of this work were the co-creation workshops, which were organised in all the project’s demo and replicator cities.

Helsinki’s workshops were organised in April and June 2025 to bring together local actors to define potential nature-based solutions, identify the roles of stakeholders, and mitigate obstacles to implementing solutions. In addition, the workshops were used to gather valuable information about the actors’ attitudes towards future heat risk and various nature-based solutions that could be used to combat heat-related impacts.

The main goal of the first workshop was to create synergies and interest in the project by directly involving relevant partners in the project’s activities, as well as to build a common understanding of climate change risks and the most potential nature-based solutions for heat mitigation.

The second workshop focused more concretely on the heat risk and the implementation of nature-based solutions in different urban environments identified in Helsinki. In the workshop, Helsinki replicator’s project focus was refined by discussing potential solutions to mitigate the effects of heatwaves related to social critical infrastructure, and key stakeholders for the wider implementation of nature-based solutions were mapped and identified.

More information about the PPCP method and the results of the workshops can also be read in the scientific publication published in February 2026.

Observations from the workshops

The discussions noted that heat risk and the urban heat island effect are important and current issues that require even more attention in Helsinki, Uusimaa, and more broadly in the Nordic countries. As heatwaves become more common and longer in the future, the problem for Northern European cities is the overheating of buildings due to general building design.

Considering social critical infrastructure, such as hospitals, service housing, and daycare centres, in the analyses was considered important by the actors participating in the workshop, as vulnerable population groups are more susceptible to health risks caused by heatwaves.

The participants were quite familiar with nature-based solutions, although the concept itself is not always as widely used in various city processes. Planting trees in strategic locations, greening schoolyards, protecting existing green areas, and greening streets were considered the most significant and easiest-to-implement nature-based solutions. Increasing shade was generally considered the most effective and easiest solution to mitigate heat.

In the second workshop, the most suitable solutions for different urban environments were considered, such as planting trees in strategic locations in a dense urban environment and greening schoolyards, and urban parks offering canopy cover in residential areas dominated by detached houses.

When considering common challenges for NBS implementation, participants highlighted lack of space in densely built urban areas, building and planning regulations, low awareness among citizens, building owners, and housing companies, unclear maintenance requirements, as well as the balance between costs and expected benefits. Participants identified building control services (city), housing companies, and property owners as key stakeholders. More examples of different incentive and constraints models are needed for supporting urban greening.

Next steps

Next, Forum Virium Helsinki and VTT, aim to open a dialogue with more private sector, property owner, and civil society actors. Site visits and stakeholder interviews with owners and managers of buildings with existing green roofs will be organised to identify factors enabling the implementation of nature-based solutions. In addition to this, currently on-going development of digital tools provides new means for more accurate monitoring of urban greenery and for simulating and presenting the effects of nature-based solutions.