CONSUS provides new knowledge on NbS for sustainable city planning in South Africa through a collaborative and visionary research project. In CONSUS, we seek to bring knowledge into action. We gain experience by learning from real-life NbS experiments promoting actionable transformative change. Specifically, we propose and test well-designed, community-based NbS projects that take advantage of the synergetic use of resources, e.g., water retention and purification,with increased livelihood benefits, learning opportunities and biodiversity conservation. CONSUS uses the conceptual framework of Urban Transformative Capacity, which guides our activities to understand and expose (in)effective urban planning practices and explore viable alternatives through the implementation of small-scale NbS. CONSUS stands in the spirit of this framework by promoting community acknowledgement and involvement, strengthening and shaping the role of intermediaries, seeking solutions to urban planning practices through our collaborative and transdisciplinary approach that promotes reflexivity and collective learning.

All work in CONSUS is grounded in interdisciplinarity through connected work packages.