Economic financial performance of NBS

In this task we collect and synthesize knowledge and evidence on the financial performance of NBS from different landscapes and thematic areas across Europe based on real implemented projects:

• urban,
• forest,
• mountain,
• coastal,
• agriculture and
• large-scale water management

The output of the task will help planners, investors and practitioners overcome the challenge of prioritising between green and grey infrastructure and to support the decision-making of investing in nature. In many cases, the lack of economic evidence of the costs and benefits of investment in NBS block the implementation of NBS or hinder in the inclusion of blended financing.

Our approach for gathering evidence includes: screening existing knowledge portals and projects; reaching out to EU-funded and national funded NBS projects, conducting scientific literature search and collaborating closely with the I4N Living Labs in Cascais (Portugal), Poznan (Poland), Aarhus (Denmark), Tirol region (Austria) and coastal communities in Norway.

Outputs

The evidence on the economic performance of NBS will be made available in an open and searchable database integrated on the OPPLA platform. It will also feed into the I4N decision support ToolBox. The ultimate hope of our activities is that this will improve the understanding of the potential of NBS, improve the quality of decision making and eventually scale up implementation.

The database will include information on

• costs: establishment, operating & maintenance, monitoring, administrative and indirect costs (opportunity costs and residual damage);
• benefits: monetary benefits, environmental effects, social effects, and health effects. The database will be searchable, i.e. by the type of landscape/thematic area;
• the type of NBS activity, challenge area and geography.

Based on the gathered evidence, this task will also produce a report on the economic and financial performance of NBS including the insurance value of NBS.

 We would like stakeholders to engage with us:

1. If they know of any successfully implemented NBS projects or if they have been or are involved in the implementation of NBS. We would then discuss with then and consider the inclusion of that project to the database with full credit of course.
2. If they wish to check out our database in development and provide us with their opinions and preferences that would be extremely valuable.
3. If they would like to discuss or provide input to how such a database focusing on the economic aspects of NBS can support their work. This would provide a very valuable insight and help ensure that our work becomes relevant and not merely an academic exercise.

Deliverable 3.1/ Task 3.1
(Months 3-24; Lead: AU; Contributors: JR, NIVA, CA, CMCC, Oppla +living labs EMAC, UMP, KT, AAKS)