Policy framework assessment and recommendations. Invest4nature Deliverable D5.3.

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Highlights policy barriers and opportunities for NbS integration in sustainable finance, useful for studying the effectiveness of EU Taxonomy.

🏢実務担当者:Provides guidance on navigating EU policy frameworks and identifying financing mechanisms for NbS projects.

🏛政策担当者:Offers concrete recommendations for strengthening NbS within sustainable finance regulations and improving investment flows.

Disclaimer: This version has been submitted to the European Commission/ its Executive Agency and is currently under review. Executive summary Nature-based Solutions (NbS) have potential to become a key instrument for addressing the interconnected challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, and increasing disaster risks at both international and European levels. Recognising this potential, the European Union has positioned itself as a global leader in promoting, mainstreaming, and implementing NbS across policy areas and sectors. However, despite growing policy recognition, large-scale implementation remains limited. A central challenge lies in translating strategic ambitions into concrete, bankable projects capable of attracting sufficient public and private investment. In this context, the EU’s sustainable finance framework plays a pivotal role in bridging the gap between policy ambition and practical implementation. Instruments such as the EU Taxonomy aim to redirect capital towards activities that support climate mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity protection, sustainable water management, and the circular economy. Nevertheless, the extent to which this framework effectively recognises and incentivises investments in NbS remains uncertain and potentially constrained. This report investigates the role and integration of NbS within the current regulatory European Union policy and sustainable finance frameworks, with particular attention to their contribution to support a transition towards a more nature-positive economy in the context of climate adaptation and mitigation, disaster risk reduction, and biodiversity protection, as well as across different landscapes. The report explores to what extent the existing policies effectively incentivise investment flows towards NbS and, at the same time, identifies key gaps, barriers, and opportunities to strengthen this integration. Drawing also on insights from Living Labs’ projects, the document develops recommendations to enhance the role of NbS within sustainable finance policies and to support their broader uptake. The analysis covers 13 EU NbS-related policies and 5 sustainable finance frameworks across three main policy domains: climate change, disaster risk reduction, and biodiversity protection. In addition, a separate cross-cutting pillar on sustainable finance and corporate sustainability is examined to capture those frameworks that help mobilise investment and direct capital towards sustainability objectives. The analysis assesses how these frameworks promote, enable, or constrain the implementation of NbS across landscapes, with the aim of supporting practitioners in navigating complex policy environments. The analysis also includes a summary of the relationship between policies, NbS, financing, and binding force, using a scoring system from 1 to 3. This may help the reader to better understand the complex relationship between these aspects. Insights from the Living Labs further strengthen the analysis by grounding it in practical, place-based experience from NbS implementation. A survey of Living Lab coordinators shows that EU policy frameworks can play an important enabling role for NbS investment, especially by providing strategic direction, regulatory justification, and access to funding opportunities. In particular, some key policies, such as the EU Adaptation Strategy, EU Climate Law, Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and Nature Restoration Regulation, were identified as especially influential, although with differences across local contexts. At the same time, Living Labs highlighted persistent barriers, including limited standardised definitions and indicators for NbS, uncertain long-term cash flows, and incomplete recognition of NbS within sustainable finance frameworks. Overall, the report finds that an increasing number of EU policies recognise the potential role of NbS in supporting climate resilience, ecosystem restoration, water management, disaster risk reduction, and sustainable land use. However, this recognition remains uneven across sectors, policy domains, and landscapes, and is often not accompanied by sufficiently operational, binding, or financially enabling mechanisms or procedures. As a result, the wider uptake and mainstreaming of NbS still face significant barriers in practice. To address these challenges, the document identifies four priority areas for action. Firstly, policy frameworks need stronger operationalisation, moving from broad recognition of NbS towards binding, targeted, and landscape-sensitive implementation mechanisms supported by clearer obligations, measurable targets, and stronger links to planning and funding instruments. Secondly, more effective and coordinated governance systems are needed to overcome fragmented responsibilities, strengthen cross-sectoral and multi-level cooperation, and embed NbS more systematically into sectoral strategies and territorial planning. Thirdly, the uptake and scaling of NbS require improved technical guidance, standardised metrics, monitoring frameworks, and practical assessment tools to support implementation, demonstrate performance, and strengthen comparability across projects and landscapes. Fourthly and finally, stronger financing and incentive schemes are needed to make NbS more investable, including clearer valuation approaches, better integration into existing financial and reporting frameworks, and the development of blended and long-term funding models able to support project development, scaling, and maintenance. These four areas emerged consistently across the analysis as the main priorities for accelerating the uptake and financing of NbS at both European and local levels. Particular attention is given to the EU Taxonomy as a flagship sustainable finance instrument with the potential to move NbS from policy ambition to investable action. As the framework is currently under revision, it also offers an immediate policy window for strengthening NbS integration. Building on recent reflections within the Platform on Sustainable Finance, the report argues that this would not require a new architecture but could be achieved within the existing Taxonomy framework. It compares three options for integrating NbS under activities that substantially contribute to climate change adaptation and identifies the introduction of a single dedicated NbS activity as the most suitable one. While this option would provide the widest coverage, it would also require precise criteria to avoid ambiguity, misuse, or overlap with existing activities. Therefore, the report outlines key actions to support its implementation, including clearer scope definition, stronger “Biodiversity Do No Significant Harm” criteria, and illustrative examples of eligible NbS measures.

• openalex https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19000577first seen 2026-05-30 04:46:01 · last seen 2026-05-30 05:03:16