Redefining business for justice-driven and human-centred urban futures

Cities sit at the frontlines of today’s intertwining crises of climate change, housing insecurity, biodiversity loss, and deepening social inequality. Across Europe, Asia, and beyond, policymakers, planners, and researchers are increasingly speaking about just urban transitions, recognizing that decarbonization and resilience must go hand in hand with fairness, inclusion, and democratic participation.

Yet the role of “business” in urban development is often left unquestioned: In most policy frameworks, business is still implicitly understood as a profit-maximizing entity whose primary responsibility is to generate financial returns for shareholders. This seemingly neutral definition silently shapes how land is developed, how infrastructure is financed, and how nature-based solutions are delivered, rendering business a structural barrier to justice-driven, human-centered, and nature-positive urban futures. If we want cities that truly leave no one behind, we may need to start by redefining what business is for.

When profit-maximization shapes the city

The idea that business exists primarily to earn profit and maximize shareholder value has become deeply embedded in procurement rules, investment logics, and public–private partnership models. In urban contexts, this often translates into three recurring patterns:

• Housing is treated mainly as a financial asset, driving speculation and displacement.
• Infrastructure projects are structured to guarantee private returns while long-term risks fall to the public.
• Nature-based solutions are concentrated in already privileged areas, sometimes triggering green gentrification.

Even when sustainability language is present, the underlying logic frequently remains extractive and short-term. Cities are then left trying to “correct” harmful effects through regulation or incentives, rather than questioning the economic purpose that produced them in the first place.

A different starting point

What if we reversed the usual hierarchy? From a psychological perspective, perceptions determine behavior, so if we want to change behaviors, then perceptions need to change, defining business as an entity that solves social issues and creates social value in a financially sustainable way.

In this framing:  social and ecological problem-solving becomes the primary purpose; financial viability becomes a condition for continuity, not the ultimate goal; and profit is legitimate when it is a by-product of contributing to collective well-being, not when it depends on producing harm.
    
This understanding resonates strongly with traditions of social enterprise, cooperative economics, and mission-oriented innovation. More importantly, it opens space to imagine business as a mutable institutional form that can be designed differently in the present depending on the futures we want to create.

What redefinition makes possible

Redefining business does not magically solve urban injustice. But it changes the institutional terrain on which solutions become possible. Four shifts are particularly relevant for just urban transitions:

• Redistribution: directing investment toward under-served communities rather than only high-return locations
• Recognition: grounding solutions in lived experience and local knowledge
• Representation: embedding communities in decision-making and co-governance
• Regeneration: aligning economic activity with long-term ecological stewardship

Instead of asking how to make existing firms “less harmful,” cities can begin asking which kinds of economic actors they actively want to cultivate and support.

Cooperative and community-led housing

In several European cities, cooperative housing initiatives demonstrate what becomes possible when housing is treated as a social good rather than a speculative asset. Projects such as Möckernkiez in Berlin, Wohnprojekt Wien in Vienna, and cooperative developments in Zurich combine collective ownership, resident co-governance, energy-efficient design and shared spaces as well as green courtyards, roofs, or gardens

Because cooperatives’ land and buildings are held in non-speculative structures, rents can be stabilized, and long-term stewardship becomes feasible. Here, “business” functions as a custodian of affordability, ecological performance, and social cohesion. Similar logics appear in parts of Asia through community-managed finance and upgrading programs, where collective savings and resident-led planning enable in-situ improvements in informal settlements (e.g., Baan Mankong Program in Thailand). Housing provision is embedded in mutual aid and solidarity, rather than driven by profit extraction.

Justice-oriented nature-based solutions

Nature-based solutions (NbS)—such as wetlands, green roofs, urban forests, and rain gardens—are often presented as win–win interventions. But without justice-oriented business models, they risk becoming another layer of “green fixing.” Social enterprises and cooperatives working in urban gardening, agroecology, and green infrastructure maintenance offer an alternative. Their success is measured not only in revenue, but also in reduced vulnerability to heat and flooding, improved access to green space, training and employment for marginalized groups, and strengthened community agency.

In Southeast Asia and the Pacific, wetlands co-designed and constructed with residents in informal settlements show how NbS can simultaneously address sanitation, flooding, and social empowerment. Here, business activity is inseparable from care, maintenance, and long-term relationships.

From public–private to public–private–people partnerships

Conventional public–private partnerships typically revolve around contracts between governments and firms, with citizens appearing as users or consultees. Public–private–people partnerships however, brings communities in as co-creators and sometimes co-owners of projects. Social enterprises, cooperatives, NGOs, and resident groups sit alongside municipalities and mission-driven private actors in shared governance arrangements. Such configurations are emerging in areas ranging from waste management and climate adaptation to cultural heritage and green infrastructure. They move closer to a model where economic activity is explicitly tied to public purpose, and where financial returns are negotiated alongside justice outcomes.

Beyond regulation: shaping markets

Redefining business also reframes the role of public authorities. Instead of only correcting market failures, cities can actively shape markets so that social-value-creating enterprises become normal rather than exceptional. This includes procurement criteria that prioritize social and ecological value, access to land and patient capital for cooperatives and social enterprises, and planning instruments that recognize non-speculative and community-led models as legitimate development pathways. In this sense, just urban transitions are not only technological or spatial projects, but also institutional design projects.

Tensions and realities

Justice-oriented business models face real challenges, which are important to acknowledge. These include difficulty scaling without losing democratic character, financial precarity due to short-term funding cycles, and power asymmetries within partnerships. In order to achieve change, efforts to redefine business must be accompanied by supportive ecosystems, new financing logics, and ongoing political negotiation, underlining why redefining business is necessary in the first place.

A different question for urban futures

For cities pursuing climate adaptation, circularity, and social justice, the central question is not “How do we make business less harmful?” but rather, “Which forms of business do we actively cultivate as legitimate partners in shaping urban futures?” When business is no longer positioned as the opposite of public interest, but as a steward of it, new pathways open where dignity, participation, and ecological regeneration are not side benefits, but foundational objectives.

This blogpost is a summary of “Redefining Business for Justice-Driven and Human-Centered Urban Futures”, currently under review by the journal Frontiers in Sustainable Resource Management, following my participation in the Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions Conference organized by Eurac Research in Bolzano, Italy in December, 2025.