Invest4Nature (I4N) is an EU-funded project that contributes to the creation of a market for nature-based solutions. A group of 15 partners from 11 European countries prepare the grounds for investments in nature-based solutions by evaluating its benefits and economic performance.
The world is experiencing a severe climate and biodiversity crisis, and Nature-based solutions (NbS) can be a powerful tool to tackle this challenge by reducing the risks of climate change driven events such as flooding or heat waves. The benefits of Nature-based Solutions are not limited to climate protection but can also increase well-being for citizens and create opportunities for employment, offering multiple benefits environmental, social, and economic value creation. Despite the multiple benefits of Nature-based solutions, they are not systematically understood. There is currently no standard method to calculate the economic and financial benefits that can be used to back their investment case. The financial valuation in the various areas of environment, society, or economy is an important indicator for financial stakeholders such as investors and insurances in building support for nature-based solutions.
So the overall project aim of Invest4Nature is to gain a better understanding of the economic and financial performance of NBS, considering their role for mitigation as well as climate risk reduction, to promote upscaling and investments in NbS, and to accelerate market uptake.
Invest4Nature will:
• Create an evaluation framework of nature-based solutions to allow sound cost-benefit analyses and the development of business models
• Provide evidence on the benefits in coastal, urban, rural and mountainous scenarios by evaluating 5 NbS Living Labs in Norway, Denmark, Poland, Austria and Portugal, each with already existing NbS cases
• Develop a Decision Support (DS) toolbox to facilitate comparison of grey/green solutions in meeting the needs of investors and selection of NBS investments with the highest social impacts.
Invest4Nature addresses the expected impacts of the call through 5 specific objectives (SO):
SO1: Better understanding of the economic and financial performance of NbS, including for risk reduction and climate resilience.
SO2: Actors involved in NbS markets are better equipped to conduct cost-benefit analysis, monetization, and business case development for NbS, and to address their funding needs for greater implementation of NbS, including ecosystem-based climate risk reduction approaches.
SO3: NbS markets are better understood, further developed, and structured including cross-sectoral value chains.
SO4: Co-development of toolboxes and increasing the NBS readiness of stakeholders
SO5: Recommendations for improved integration of NBS in the EU Sustainable Finance Framework and Green Deal policy frameworks
Invest4Nature will have several ground-breaking scientific innovations to increase NbS uptake address research and market gaps identified in ongoing related project. This includes:
• The development and testing of a novel methodological approach to evaluate the benefits of NbS incorporating uncertainties associated with climate risks and impacts
• The establishment of integrated, comprehensive economic evidence on the costs and multiple benefits of NbS including on-the-ground evidence on how NbS compares to grey infrastructure solutions across different NbS types and landscapes (urban, coastal, rural)
• The characterization and consolidation of innovative financing options, business models and economic leverage for NbS markets considering new roles of NbS for climate resilience and risk reduction
Five existing NbS cases (in Denmark, Poland, Portugal, Norway and Austria), covering urban, rural, mountainous, and coastal landscapes from across Europe, different challenges, and typology of NbS, make up a key component in Invest4Nature. The role of the existing NbS cases in Invest4Nature is to inform and shape frameworks that are operational on the ground (WP2); to contribute with in- depth knowledge and evidence of NbS economics and financing (WP3), carried out in a process of co-development workspaces (WP4), and provide testbeds for solutions, e.g. the DS toolbox (WP5) and tests of validity and applicability of innovative business models and investor readiness (WP3, WP5). The existing NbS cases have been selected according to criteria of i) advanced level of NbS implementation and/or plans; ii) sufficient level of quantitative data on performance and efficiency of NbS; and iii) covering a diverse range of landscapes and challenges across Europe in which NbS operates.
