What are Nature-based Solutions (NbS)?
Nature-Based Solutions (NbS), according to the IUCN, use ecosystems to address societal challenges like the climate crisis, while enhancing biodiversity, and improving health, wellbeing and local economies.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the reference body on the matter: “Nature-based Solutions are actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural and modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously benefiting people and nature. (IUCN, 2016)”.
In other words, always according to IUCN, NBS are actions supported by ecosystems and the services they provide, that address multiple societal challenges like climate change, food and water security, human health or disaster risk reduction, in order to generate multiple benefits for people and biodiversity, including sustainable and inclusive economic development.
IUCN Global Standard for NbS
Since 2020 there is a robust and global standard on NBS (IUCN, 2020), managed by IUCN itself. Its purpose is to provide users with a solid framework to design and verify that the promoted NBS achieve the desired results in relation, above all, to the societal challenges on which they act. It is focused on actual and potential users of NBS, and is not conceived as a rigid regulatory framework with fixed and definitive thresholds, but rather as an enabling tool that aims to help users apply, learn and continuously improve the effectiveness, sustainability and adaptability of their NBS.
It also provides a coherent approach to design and verify concrete solutions-oriented results; ensuring the quality of both design and execution, the follow-up of results and their linking with global sustainability frameworks.
The IUCN Global Standard for NBS consists of 8 criteria and 28 indicators, summarized as follows:
NbS address societal challenges, including climate change (adaptation and mitigation), disaster risk reduction, ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss, food security, human health, social and economic development and water security.
They are designed at scale, meaning the scale of the solution is relevant to that of the challenge.
NbS:
- Achieve a biodiversity net gain, contributing to ecosystem integrity and connectivity.
- Are economically feasible thanks to a sound business model that captures and monetizes the value created for the stakeholders, in particular the local community, through the benefits and co-benefits (i.e. ecosystem services) generated, all while distributing the wealth equitably. The scope of the economic feasibility analysis should encompass the whole local economy around the NbS, especially regarding the SMEs involved, green jobs created, and social equity built.
- Are rooted in inclusive governance, mobilizing and engaging all key stakeholders in decision-making throughout the entire process.
- They reach balanced trade-offs, well justified, among the different parameters and impacts of the project.
- And are managed adaptively, being able to adjust and adapt over time to the evolution of the challenges addressed, as well as to the changing context.
NbS can easily be mainstreamed, thus contributing to global sustainability targets and frameworks; by sharing good practices, especially in terms of policy recommendations, and also devising replication methodologies to scale up impact.
In short, it is a robust standard that provides soundness to NBS projects, whatever their development phase (design, implementation, evaluation and improvement); ensuring positive impact on social challenges, adequacy in scale, biodiversity net gain, inclusive governance, economic viability, balanced trade-offs, and alignment with strategies and legal frameworks at all levels. For more information and illustrative examples, refer to the following articles written by Jesus Iglesias for El Pais (leading Spainsh journal): “For a wild world“, “Without democracy there is neither forest nor sea“, and “Nature-Based Solutions or greenwashing?“