Build up of knowledge on Nature Positive Economy and supporting its scale-up

The EU biodiversity strategy for 2030 states that “industry and business have an impact on nature, but they also produce the important innovations, partnerships and expertise that can help address biodiversity loss”. From the perspective of the private sector, integrating natural capital and biodiversity considerations into their decision-making processes makes economic sense as it can enhance corporate resilience and minimise investment risks. At the same time, economic activities that aim at reversing of biodiversity loss can create positive outcomes for the society such as job creation and sustainable economic growth in rural, post-industrial and disadvantaged areas and strengthen resilience against environmental and climate stressors, contributing to a fair and green transition and recovery in line with the European Green Deal. According to the World Economic Forum, a nature-positive recovery “can unlock an estimated $10 trillion of business opportunity by transforming three economic ecosystems that are responsible for almost 80% of nature loss and create 395 million resilient jobs by 2030 in the process”[[https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_Future_Of_Nature_And_Business_2020.pdf.]].

Nature-based solutions (NBS) can play a particularly key role in leveraging of the economic and societal potential of nature with the development of existing and new market sectors with ‘nature-based enterprises’ (NBEs) at the core. Such innovative NBEs use nature (and ecosystem services) as an input to deliver nature positive outputs - products, services and jobs that are sustainable, future-oriented, and more resilient. By definition, they constitute a backbone of the bioeconomy.

However, nature-positive economy where such NBEs can thrive is still at its infancy and enabling framework conditions are required to improve market conditions and to unlock investment. The market is encountering many specific difficulties due to market fragmentation, early stage of development and difficulty in assembling the required knowledge, skillset, and governance structures for supplying and maintaining “living solutions” such as nature-based solutions. There is a need at the same time to increase manyfold the investment in NBS[[ According to UNEP State of Finance for Nature 2021, by 2030 if the world is to meet its climate change, biodiversity and land degradation targets, the investment will need to triple, unlocking in particular private finance (only 14% of the current investment).]].

The action should:

• On Concept: Undertake in-depth research into the key concepts underpinning nature positive economy, establishing synergies and trade-offs with other policies, strategies, and business models such as bioeconomy related, and exploring the role of nature positive activities and NBS in promoting transformative change to provide holistic solutions that address global challenges such as climate, biodiversity, and pollution crisis;
• On Market Knowledge: Building on the work of Horizon 2020 projects and their taskforces, identify barriers and analyse market potential in different economic sectors, at European and national level when possible, for each sector, identify the stakeholders of the different value chains for the different types of nature positive economic activities, estimating the net job creation potential with a view to supporting the framing of nature positive economy narrative. This work should include identification and analysis of representative case studies and reflections on positioning towards nature positive economic activities as defined by the Sustainable Finance Taxonomy[[ That is to say the criteria ‘Substantially Contribute’ in regards of the protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems]];
• Foster collaboration between nature-based entrepreneurs, research and technical organisations, policy makers, financiers and investors, business development bodies through, for example, participatory arrangements and spaces, to close the Science Policy Implementation gap;
• On Indicators: Building on previous research, notably natural capital valuation methods including both monetary and non-monetary economic valuation approaches for nature-based solutions[[ The published EC Handbook on evaluating the impact of NBS provides a comprehensive reference point on how to measure different types of impact. There are also many Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe projects on Natural Capital, as well as LIFE projects (e.g. LIFE Transparent).]], deliver progress towards standardised, widely accepted economic indicators, reflecting wider socio-economic, biodiversity and natural capital benefits;
• On Market development: using the collaborative and participatory arrangements, develop and pilot strategies, measures (both market and non-market) and approaches for scaling and speeding up the implementation of nature positive economic activities, including Nature-based Solutions (NBS), both from supply and demand side perspective to boost nature-based market development, innovation, and job creation in EU and beyond. This may comprise for market supply economic, finance and governance innovations, capacity building and training;
• Explore and facilitate synergies and interconnection with different EU, MS and Horizon Europe Associated Countries initiatives, such as: EU and national Business and Biodiversity platforms, national restoration plans, Business Acceleration Services, Climate KIC, Smart Specialisation Strategies, Recovery Plans, the EU Biodiversity Partnership, Circular Bio-based Europe Partnership, European Bioeconomy Policy Forum, for more coordinated actions and aggregated impact on NBS and nature positive activities;
• Set up and/or collaborate with relevant marketplaces and similar initiatives at the relevant scales, so that potential project partners, entrepreneurs, investors, and innovation stakeholders can match supply, demand and expertise on designing, implementing, managing, monitoring, valuing, financing NBS, ecosystem services and nature positive activities;
• On Standardisation: support the engagement of the relevant communities (including the communities engaged in the relevant Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe and LIFE projects) in contributing to the development of sector-specific standards and/or certification schemes;
• Build on and/or establish synergies with the relevant work by initiatives/projects/studies including, but not limited to the EIB led study on facilitating access to finance for Nature-based solutions, the EC publication ‘The vital role of NBS in the Nature-Positive Economy’[[ The vital role of nature-based solutions in a nature positive economy | European Commission (europa.eu)]], the World Economic Forum’s New Nature Economy Report Series, The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review, The State of Finance for Nature 2021[[ State of Finance for Nature | UNEP - UN Environment Programme.]];
• Actions should bring together from the start multiple types of scientific expertise in social sciences and humanities, in particular in economics and finance, as well as scientific expertise in biodiversity and natural capital.

Other conditions:

Actions should envisage clustering activities with the projects with the Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe Natural Capital Accounting and NBS project portfolio and respective task forces as well as any Horizon Europe relevant projects on NBS[[ notably coordinate with Horizon Europe projects resulting from: HORIZON-CL6-2022-COMMUNITIES-01-05: Assessing the socio-politics of nature-based solutions for more inclusive and resilient communities; HORIZON-CL6-2022-BIODIV-01-04: Natural capital accounting: Measuring the biodiversity footprint of products and organizations; HORIZON-CL6-2021-BIODIV-01-05: The economics of nature-based solutions: cost-benefit analysis, market development and funding; HORIZON-CL6-2022-BIODIV-01-03: Network for nature: multi-stakeholder dialogue platform to promote nature-based solutions; s, and the 2 topics HORIZON-CL6-2023-BIODIV-01-9 and HORIZON-CL6-2024-BIODIV-01-4.]] and Bioeconomy. To this end proposals should foresee dedicated tasks and appropriate resources for coordination measures, foresee joint activities and joint deliverables.