Conference
Accelerating Nature-Based Solutions: Developing awareness and evidence for nature positive futures
The devastating floods in 2021 caused economic losses of €46 billion in Europe alone; 45% of the EU was under drought warning by mid-July 2022; freshwater biodiversity loss is plummeting, with a 93% decline of migratory fish in Europe. Approximately 20% of European cities are classified as being vulnerable to river floods. In the UK and the EU, river flooding causes an annual damage of €7.6 billion per year and exposes approximately 166,000 people per year to inundation.
Investing in floodplain restoration and other detention areas to buffer floods could reduce economic damage and population exposed, by 83% and 84%, respectively. Nature-Based Solutions has been identified as a key tool that can contribute to bend the biodiversity curve and climate change adaptation and mitigation. There is a strong need in creating awareness and evidence for the potential and co-benefits of NbS. However, NbS propositions are facing challenges due to a lack of scale-based design thinking and investment readiness.
As such, WWF Netherlands and Wageningen University and Research are working on an Incubation Facility and a Designing Nature Positive Future Student Challenge, respectively. Imagining nature positive futures is a powerful tool to create awareness for the importance and potential of nature-based solutions. Additionally, the need for a facility can be identified in the findings of the latest European Investment Bank Report on NbS (2023). EIB is an existing partner for WWF. A significant gap may also be said to exist in financing for early-stage innovative and sustainable projects, that has the potential to be remedied using a range of financial products in scoping and pre-feasibility stage. As successful projects mature and are selected based on set criteria, they are able to attract investment from commercial financial institutions. The session below will discuss pathways to create awareness and evidence of Nature-Based Solutions.
