August 3, 2020, Oakland, California – A new report co-authored by the Pacific Institute examines contemporary thinking around nature-based solutions (NBS) for the business sector and identifies key opportunities and challenges to implementing NBS for businesses.
“Although nature-based solutions for watersheds provide multiple benefits related to water, climate change and extreme weather events, biodiversity, society, and the economy, they have not been implemented at scale because of the lack of a business case for their implementation,” says co-author Tien Shiao, Senior Researcher at the Pacific Institute. “This report summarizes where we are now, and identifies key steps for moving towards an understanding of the value of NBS for business climate and water resilience.”
Benefit Accounting of Nature Based Solutions for Watersheds Landscape Assessment finds that while several approaches to scale NBS have been implemented by the private sector, few build the capacity of internal and external stakeholders to mainstream the adoption of NBS, as they do not identify the multiple benefits of taking action, often only focusing on a narrow set of benefits, such as carbon- and water-related benefits.
The authors include recommendations for improving the business case for NBS, including:
- Develop a standardized approach to identify and account for the multiple benefits of NBS for businesses;
- Establish partnerships between the public and the private sectors in order to demonstrate economic, social, and environmental opportunities and create incentives for large-scale application of NBS; and
- Include the negative or unintended impacts of NBS in calculations.
This report was produced by the CEO Water Mandate, which the Pacific Institute serves as Co-Secretariat for, in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy and Danone S.A. The second phase of this project, already underway, will develop a systematic approach to account for the benefits of NBS for watersheds in a way that builds the business case for implementing NBS at scale.
To learn more and download the report, click here.
Visit www.ceowatermandate.com/nbs for more information or to engage in this work.