Integrating Equity into Environmental Planning: A Critical Review of Nature-Based Policies and Practices

Abstract

Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) have become a cornerstone of urban climate adaptation strategies, promoted by international bodies and adopted by municipalities as flexible, cost-effective alternatives to conventional grey infrastructure. Despite their growing integration into planning policy, critical questions remain about who benefits from these interventions, who participates in shaping them, and who may ultimately be displaced as a result. This paper examines the extent to which NbS implemented through Toronto's Sustainable Neighbourhood Action Plan (SNAP) in Rexdale addresses long-term environmental equity, and how planning processes can be improved to produce more just and inclusive outcomes. Using the Rexdale SNAP as a primary case study, this research adopts a critical mixed-methods approach grounded in frameworks from urban political ecology, growth machine theory, environmental justice, and critical planning theory. Data collection and analysis include: critical discourse analysis of planning and policy documents (including Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) SNAP reports, municipal strategies such as TransformTO, and provincial planning frameworks); and a spatial and socio-demographic analysis using QGIS, mapping NbS interventions against tree data across the Rexdale community. Three key findings emerge from the analysis. First, critical discourse analysis of Rexdale SNAP planning documents reveals that equity is invoked rhetorically but framed in technocratic terms that depoliticize NbS delivery: community participation is treated as consultation rather than co-production, vulnerability is measured by income and housing tenure while race and immigration status go unacknowledged, and ecological performance metrics dominate documents at the expense of social equity indicators. Second, GIS spatial analysis reveals a significant mismatch between NbS intervention locations and areas of highest vulnerability: SNAP investments concentrate along arterial corridors and TRCA controlled land rather than in the MURB-dense dissemination areas where climate exposure, low income, and racialized demographics converge. Third, NbS investments located within the Finch West LRT corridor overlap with elevated green gentrification risk indicators, suggesting that the same interventions intended to reduce environmental inequity may accelerate displacement pressure for low-income renters in the absence of anti-displacement safeguards. Together, these findings reveal a structural gap between the equity commitments stated in SNAP documentation and the distributional outcomes produced through implementation. This paper contributes to a growing body of critical NbS scholarship by interrogating how equity is applied, or not, in a Canadian suburban context that has been historically underserved by green amenities and disproportionately affected by environmental burdens. It argues that achieving just outcomes requires moving beyond technical framings of NbS, toward governance approaches that centre the communities voice, address displacement risk, and actively challenge the structural inequities shaping urban environmental planning. The findings carry implications for municipalities, conservation authorities, and practitioners working at the intersection of climate adaptation, environmental justice, and neighbourhood planning across Canadian and international urban contexts.