Watersheds around the world are in peril and risk further decline from climate change and human impacts, like pollution, land degradation, and unsustainable resource use. These impacts have inhibited the ability of ecosystems to sustainably provide the ecosystem services that humans rely on, such as regulation of water flow, carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and temperature regulation. Climate change is exacerbating these impacts through shifting weather patterns and increasing the recurrence and severity of natural disasters. Urgent action is needed to address these impacts by implementing nature-based solutions (NBS).
Nature-based solutions (NBS) provide mechanisms to work with nature, not against it, to adapt to and even reverse the impacts of climate change and other human activities. NBS has been defined by the IUCN as:
Actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges, effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits.
NBS can help uptake and store carbon; manage floods, droughts, and extreme weather events; restore watershed and ecosystem health; increase biodiversity; improve agricultural production; and provide a wide range of socio-economic benefits. Additionally, NBS (including green infrastructure) can be more flexible, resilient, and cost-effective than conventional engineered solutions (gray infrastructure).
While investments in NBS have grown significantly over the last decade, several barriers hinder widespread implementation.
- Lack of awareness about the potential benefits of NBS, from an ecosystem perspective, and from a business perspective;
- Lack of resources including under-investment by both the private and public sectors and time and land constraints;
- Lack of long-term planning (which NBS requires), and a focus on developing and implementing “bankable projects” as quickly and efficiently as possible
- Lack of policy and governance frameworks to incentivize investments in NBS;
- Path dependency of organizational decision-making; and
- Lack of standardized methods and tools to identify, account for, and value NBS benefits.
To address many of these barriers, and specifically the last one, the Pacific Institute and CEO Water Mandate have partnered with several organizations to help scale up and mainstream investments in NBS for watersheds.
2023 UN-Water Conference Corporate NBS Session Panel
Nature-Based Solutions Webinar Series 1: How to Identify and Account for the Benefits of Nature-Based Solutions for Watersheds
Nature-Based Solutions Webinar Series 2: From Theory to Practice
Nature Based Solutions Webinar Series 3: Benefits Explorer Tool
Tools of the trade: Benefit accounting of nature-based solutions
The Natural Benefits of Including Nature in Water Business Strategy – Uniting Business Live 2021
This initiative is developing a standardized method, guidance and tool to identify, account for, and value the stacked water, carbon, biodiversity, and socio-economic benefits of NBS for watersheds (Figure 1). This initiative demonstrates how accounting for stacked benefits quantitatively and qualitatively can build the business case and show the investment potential of NBS for watersheds, as well as build awareness of their value.
The primary audience of the guide, method, and tool is expected to be private sector decision-makers (e.g. corporate sustainability practitioners, water stewardship teams, and financial officers) involved in the implementation and evaluation of NBS interventions. Specifically, the guide, method, and tool will be most useful for companies interested in responding proactively to shared sustainability challenges, as well as companies that are implementing or considering investing in NBS and would like to estimate and demonstrate the potential benefits of NBS interventions.
The secondary audience includes public sector actors, NGOs, investment organizations, development banks, academia, civil society groups and local communities involved in supporting and/or developing effective policies, programs and projects to incentivize greater implementation of and investment in NBS.
Expert advisory groups (EAGs) provide strategic and technical input into the direction of the project and review the various project outputs to ensure that these are robust, credible, and defensible. These EAGs comprise representatives from the public and private sectors, development banks, NGOs, and academia. Other stakeholder engagement supports the uptake, socialization, and refinement of project outcomes and outputs.
If you’d like to discuss how you and your organization can get involved with this NBS initiative or to hear more about project-related reports, upcoming events, or how to sign up to be a case study, fill out the form below.