Can nature help you solve your problems and achieve multiple outcomes?
Explore our nature-based solutions map below to discover what is possible
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Can nature help you solve your problems and achieve multiple outcomes?
Explore our nature-based solutions map below to discover what is possible
Green or living walls and vertical gardens on buildings help connect people in urban areas with the natural environment, which is good for health and mental wellbeing. Structures covered in vegetation also deliver numerous other benefits, from removing air pollutants and improving biodiversity to attenuating rainwater, providing thermal insulation and reducing overheating.
Green walls
Co-benefits
Wetlands are natural infrastructure, and important for biodiversity, with about 40% of the world’s plants and animals dependent on them. They are also effective carbon sinks and provide livelihoods for millions of people.
Wetlands
Co-benefits
Natural flood management (NFM) works with natural processes to reduce flood risk, often across a catchment area. Natural solutions include restoring bends in rivers, changing how land is managed so soil can absorb more water, floodplain restoration, leaky barriers, planting trees along rivers, catchment woodland and offline storage areas. NFM brings additional benefits, such as enhancing habitats, improving water quality and climate resilience and providing recreational opportunities.
Natural flood management
Catchment management involves managing water resources and land use practices on a river catchment scale to reduce flood risk, soil erosion, sediment build-up and pollution, and improve water quality, climate resilience and access. Catchment management balances user needs – agriculture, domestic and industry – with the aim of protecting and improving water resources for all.
Catchment management
Sustainable land management practices can improve the functioning of ecosystems, help regulate water cycles and limit contamination of groundwater, prevent soil erosion and salinisation, capture and store carbon and help preserve agrobiodiversity and livelihoods. Nature-based solutions can address hydrological risks and land degradation and include rewilding, land restoration, sediment trapping and wetland construction. Contour ploughing and planting hedgerows and trees help to reduce runoff, water pollution and soil erosion, increase soil moisture and reduce the impacts of droughts, as well as mitigate downstream flood risk and create habitats. Healthy soils improve crop yields.
Sustainable land management
Find out how we helped farmers in Malawi to adopt sustainable farming and forestry practices to catch eroded soil borne by rainwater runoff.
Natural coastal management uses natural infrastructure to reduce the risks to coastal zones of climate impacts, such as sea level rise and erosion from storms, as well as protect against pollution and risks associated with land use change and development. Tidal marshes, beach nourishment, barrier islands, mangroves, seagrass, kelp forests and biogenic reefs are ways to incorporate nature and natural elements into shoreline management systems. They often increase the resilience of existing ecosystems and provide a wide range of benefits for other sectors, such as tourism and fisheries, as well as coastal protection.
Natural coastal management
Biophilic design principles integrate nature and natural materials into the built environment to bring people and nature closer. They ensure space is organised and optimised for people and nature to co-exist. Measures include: vegetation in our office and home environments, natural patterns, shapes, textures and sounds, views of nature and natural solutions to deliver thermal and acoustic comfort, lighting and good air quality. Biophilic design solutions also often incorporate natural materials or materials similar to their natural counterparts. Using carbon neutral plant-based and bio-fabricated construction materials will reduce embodied carbon.
Biophilic design
Reforestation restocks depleted and fragmented woodlands and afforestation creates new ones. Trees remove and store carbon from the atmosphere, reduce the risk of flooding and soil erosion and enhance local air quality. Restoring or creating woodlands supports healthy ecosystems, improves biodiversity and provides wildlife habitat and recreational space.
Woodlands and forests
Co-benefits
Our reforestation and regeneration plan is helping endangered species recover in Indonesia.
Sand dunes are ridges or hills of sand at the rear of a beach that are formed by wind moving sand onshore. Providing space for sand dunes to shift inland as sea levels rise and stabilising them by maintaining and introducing vegetation to hold them together can help reduce flood risk to coastal communities from storms, wind and waves. Sand dunes provide habitat for a unique variety of wildlife and plants.
Sand dunes
Co-benefits
Runoff management systems are physical structures that mimic natural processes to reduce and slow runoff from the land. By intercepting runoff and trapping soil and sediment before it leaves a field, ponds/scrapes, ditches/swales, sediment traps, earth bunds, hedge banks, riparian buffer strips and wetlands help maintain and manage good quality water resources by removing pollutants. They also temporarily capture water and slow down flow, reducing the risk of localised flooding, providing valuable aquatic habitats and recharging aquifers.
Runoff management
Co-benefits
Hedgerows and small patches of trees on farmland and near watercourses catch, store and filter water, mitigating the impacts of drought and flooding and helping to reduce pollution. They also stabilise soils and prevent erosion, provide wildlife habitat and linkages, support pollinators, and can act as a buffer against wind and sound as well as stop the spread of disease by keeping livestock apart.
Hedgerows/tree patches
Co-benefits
Integrated constructed wetlands (ICWs) are environmentally sustainable solutions to wastewater treatment. Constructed near farms, landfills and mines and food production and wastewater treatment plants, ICWs use naturally occurring vegetative processes to contain and treat ammonia, suspended solids and trace metals, for example. Well-designed ICWs provide aesthetic additions to the local landscape, enhancing the amenity value of the surroundings. They also improve habitat diversity and help preserve sensitive receptors.
Integrated constructed wetlands
Co-benefits
Mangroves are important to the wellbeing of coastal zones in many places, acting as barriers against storms and sea-level rise and providing nursery grounds for fish to support fishing communities and local livelihoods. They also help to mitigate climate change, with mangrove soils locking away large quantities of carbon, and are highly productive and biologically rich ecosystems.
Mangroves
Co-benefits
Find out how we supported Indonesia’s government in its efforts to achieve sustainable development in its lowlands, including 36Mha of coastal areas.
Leaky barriers slow the flow of watercourses and provide temporary water storage, helping to delay the travel time of the flood peak. They usually consist of wood material from the riverbanks, and occasionally vegetation, and connect with areas of floodplain. Leaky barriers mirror naturally occurring obstructions, such as fallen trees that get lodged in a river or dams built by wildlife.
Leaky barriers
Co-benefits
We have introduced leaky barriers at Llanfair Talharian in Wales and piloted their introduction on the Leeds NFM project.
River restoration involves reinstating natural processes, such as vegetated banks and meanders, enhancing flow and habitat, restoring biodiversity and improving the health of the ecosystem. The aim is to restore the geomorphological function in terms of water and sediment movement in the river catchment, channels and floodplains. Naturally functioning rivers help mitigate flooding, deliver freshwater supplies, boost recreation, store carbon and improve health. Floodplains allow rivers to expand naturally during periods of high flows and are an essential part of the river system, helping to filter and store water and ensure the healthy functioning of rivers.
River restoration
Co-benefits
Find out how we’re putting life back into waterways in Hong Kong, New York and the New Forest in the UK, and supporting the Room for the River programme in the Netherlands.
Saltmarsh and mudflat creation and restoration includes replenishing degraded saltmarshes and managed coastal realignment, which involves enabling coastal areas that had previously been reclaimed for farming to revert to their natural state. It can improve biodiversity by providing habitats for rare and valuable plant and animal species and reduce the flood risk to coastlines by creating a buffer zone between the sea and infrastructure or homes. They are also carbon stores and lock in sediment.
Saltmarsh/mudflats
Co-benefits
Discover how we helped create a new intertidal marshland in Texas.
Peatland restoration is crucial to tackling climate change. Peat captures and stores vast amounts carbon, but human activity has degraded and drained peatland in many places, with dry and eroding peat releasing carbon back into the atmosphere, adding to global warming. Blocking drainage ditches, rewetting drained peat and revegetating areas restores degraded peatland, often a habitat for critically endangered species.
Peatland restoration
Co-benefits
Beach replenishment and nourishment mitigates the effects of erosion by replacing lost sediment, and provides a wide range of benefits, including storm and wave buffer zones, recreational opportunities and protection of sand dunes. Functioning beaches attract visitors, supporting jobs and economic growth.
Beach replenishment
Co-benefits
Find out how we used 1Mt of dredged sand to reinstate the beach at Colwyn Bay, Wales.
Living shorelines are green infrastructure that uses plants, rocks and sand alone or in combination with grey infrastructure, such as sea walls, to stabilise coastal areas. Benefits include remediation of nutrient pollution, creation of fish habitats, and protection from waves and storms.
Living shorelines
Co-benefits
Sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) manage surface water, storing and slowing runoff before it enters waterbodies. SuDS generally combine natural elements, such as retention ponds, detention basins, swales, rain gardens, soakaways, infiltration trenches and tree pits, with permeable/porous surfacing. They mimic nature by managing rainfall close to where it falls to mitigate the risk of flooding in urban areas and further downstream.
Urban SuDS
Co-benefits
Urban green and blue networks can be established in towns and cities by repurposing abandoned rail spurs, returning culverted watercourses to open water or connecting existing habitats, such as riverbanks to create new habitats, active travel corridors, linked green spaces and places for recreation. They combine landscape, urban design and ecology, and help bring nature back into urban areas. Examples include New York City’s Highline and the Promenade Plantée in Paris.
Urban green and blue networks
Co-benefits
Find out how we’re helping to create the Arbutus Greenway in Vancouver.
Pocket parks are small, accessible green spaces often created on unloved, neglected or derelict, brownfield plots of land. They provide places for people to come together, helping to strengthen communities and increase climate resilience. Local businesses near these areas often enjoy a ‘placemaking dividend’ – people visit, stay longer, and return often, boosting local economies, and creating jobs.
Pocket parks
Co-benefits
Discover how a new park on abandoned land reconnected Newark with its river.
Green roofs act as a rainwater buffer and an air purifier, as well as helping to reduce the ambient temperature and provide temporary storage for water. An accessible green roof is a place for meetings or recreation for a building’s occupants. It is a refuge for insects and birds in towns and cities. A green roof may also improve property values and marketability. Nature-based solutions for roofs also include blue roofs – specifically designed to store water and enable it to drain more slowly – and brown roofs, where the substrate surface is left to self-vegetate.
Green roofs
Co-benefits
Highways can benefit from nature-based solutions, with landscaping and ecological design helping to complement or offset traditional infrastructure to address climate change impacts and biodiversity loss, as well as minimise the environmental effects. Woodland schemes intercept overland flow of water, trapping and storing water before it can reach the roadside on highways susceptible to flooding. Vegetation provides carbon sequestration and air filtering and reduces a road’s environmental footprint, while delivering biodiversity net gain.
Highways
Co-benefits
See our nature-based approach for the A3 in Surrey and the Bexhill to Hastings link road in Sussex. Read more on how nature-based solutions can deliver cost savings and a greener future for highways.
Street trees contribute to the character of our urban areas, providing many benefits. Planting in cities can contribute to better air quality as they act as pollution filters that capture toxins and remove pollutants. They also provide shade for people and buildings and cooling to combat the urban heat island effect, while encouraging biodiversity and wildlife, including providing travel corridors for birds and insects.
Street trees
Co-benefits
Plot your next steps
Biophilic design
Biophilic design principles integrate nature and natural materials into the built environment to bring people and nature closer. They ensure space is organised and optimised for people and nature to co-exist. Measures include: vegetation in our office and home environments, natural patterns, shapes, textures and sounds, views of nature and natural solutions to deliver thermal and acoustic comfort, lighting and good air quality. Biophilic design solutions also often incorporate natural materials or materials similar to their natural counterparts. Using carbon neutral plant-based and bio-fabricated construction materials will reduce embodied carbon.
Back to map
Green roofs
Green roofs act as a rainwater buffer and an air purifier, as well as helping to reduce the ambient temperature and provide temporary storage for water. An accessible green roof is a place for meetings or recreation for a building’s occupants. It is a refuge for insects and birds in towns and cities. A green roof may also improve property values and marketability. Nature-based solutions for roofs also include blue roofs – specifically designed to store water and enable it to drain more slowly – and brown roofs, where the substrate surface is left to self-vegetate.
Co-benefits
Back to map
Green walls
Green or living walls and vertical gardens on buildings help connect people in urban areas with the natural environment, which is good for health and mental wellbeing. Structures covered in vegetation also deliver numerous other benefits, from removing air pollutants and improving biodiversity to attenuating rainwater, providing thermal insulation and reducing overheating.
Co-benefits
Back to map
Highways
Highways can benefit from nature-based solutions, with landscaping and ecological design helping to complement or offset traditional infrastructure to address climate change impacts and biodiversity loss, as well as minimise the environmental effects. Woodland schemes intercept overland flow of water, trapping and storing water before it can reach the roadside on highways susceptible to flooding. Vegetation provides carbon sequestration and air filtering and reduces a road’s environmental footprint, while delivering biodiversity net gain.
Co-benefits
See our nature-based approach for the A3 in Surrey and the Bexhill to Hastings link road in Sussex. Read more on how nature-based solutions can deliver cost savings and a greener future for highways.
Back to map
Street trees
Street trees contribute to the character of our urban areas, providing many benefits. Planting in cities can contribute to better air quality as they act as pollution filters that capture toxins and remove pollutants. They also provide shade for people and buildings and cooling to combat the urban heat island effect, while encouraging biodiversity and wildlife, including providing travel corridors for birds and insects.
Co-benefits
Back to map
Pocket parks
Pocket parks are small, accessible green spaces often created on unloved, neglected or derelict, brownfield plots of land. They provide places for people to come together, helping to strengthen communities and increase climate resilience. Local businesses near these areas often enjoy a ‘placemaking dividend’ – people visit, stay longer, and return often, boosting local economies, and creating jobs.
Co-benefits
Discover how a new park on abandoned land reconnected Newark with its river.
Back to map
Co-benefits
Urban green and blue networks
Urban green and blue networks can be established in towns and cities by repurposing abandoned rail spurs, returning culverted watercourses to open water or connecting existing habitats, such as riverbanks to create new habitats, active travel corridors, linked green spaces and places for recreation. They combine landscape, urban design and ecology, and help bring nature back into urban areas. Examples include New York City’s Highline and the Promenade Plantée in Paris.
Find out how we’re helping to create the Arbutus Greenway in Vancouver.
Back to map
Urban SuDS
Sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) manage surface water, storing and slowing runoff before it enters waterbodies. SuDS generally combine natural elements, such as retention ponds, detention basins, swales, rain gardens, soakaways, infiltration trenches and tree pits, with permeable/porous surfacing. They mimic nature by managing rainfall close to where it falls to mitigate the risk of flooding in urban areas and further downstream.
Co-benefits
Find out how SuDS are protecting homes and businesses in London, Newcastle, Philadelphia and Brooklyn.
Back to map
Living shorelines
Living shorelines are green infrastructure that uses plants, rocks and sand alone or in combination with grey infrastructure, such as sea walls, to stabilise coastal areas. Benefits include remediation of nutrient pollution, creation of fish habitats, and protection from waves and storms.
Co-benefits
Our living shoreline projects in the US include the Biloxi Marsh estuary, Louisiana and La Quinta in Texas.
Back to map
Beach replenishment
Beach replenishment and nourishment mitigates the effects of erosion by replacing lost sediment, and provides a wide range of benefits, including storm and wave buffer zones, recreational opportunities and protection of sand dunes. Functioning beaches attract visitors, supporting jobs and economic growth.
Co-benefits
Find out how we used 1Mt of dredged sand to reinstate the beach at Colwyn Bay, Wales.
Back to map
Sand dunes
Sand dunes are ridges or hills of sand at the rear of a beach that are formed by wind moving sand onshore. Providing space for sand dunes to shift inland as sea levels rise and stabilising them by maintaining and introducing vegetation to hold them together can help reduce flood risk to coastal communities from storms, wind and waves. Sand dunes provide habitat for a unique variety of wildlife and plants.
Co-benefits
Back to map
Saltmarsh/mudflats
Saltmarsh and mudflat creation and restoration includes replenishing degraded saltmarshes and managed coastal realignment, which involves enabling coastal areas that had previously been reclaimed for farming to revert to their natural state. It can improve biodiversity by providing habitats for rare and valuable plant and animal species and reduce the flood risk to coastlines by creating a buffer zone between the sea and infrastructure or homes. They are also carbon stores and lock in sediment.
Co-benefits
Discover how we helped create a new intertidal marshland in Texas.
Back to map
Mangroves
Mangroves are important to the wellbeing of coastal zones in many places, acting as barriers against storms and sea-level rise and providing nursery grounds for fish to support fishing communities and local livelihoods. They also help to mitigate climate change, with mangrove soils locking away large quantities of carbon, and are highly productive and biologically rich ecosystems.
Co-benefits
Find out how we supported Indonesia’s government in its efforts to achieve sustainable development in its lowlands, including 36Mha of coastal areas.
Back to map
Natural coastal management
Natural coastal management uses natural infrastructure to reduce the risks to coastal zones of climate impacts, such as sea level rise and erosion from storms, as well as protect against pollution and risks associated with land use change and development. Tidal marshes, beach nourishment, barrier islands, mangroves, seagrass, kelp forests and biogenic reefs are ways to incorporate nature and natural elements into shoreline management systems. They often increase the resilience of existing ecosystems and provide a wide range of benefits for other sectors, such as tourism and fisheries, as well as coastal protection.
Back to map
Runoff management
Runoff management systems are physical structures that mimic natural processes to reduce and slow runoff from the land. By intercepting runoff and trapping soil and sediment before it leaves a field, ponds/scrapes, ditches/swales, sediment traps, earth bunds, hedge banks, riparian buffer strips and wetlands help maintain and manage good quality water resources by removing pollutants. They also temporarily capture water and slow down flow, reducing the risk of localised flooding, providing valuable aquatic habitats and recharging aquifers.
Co-benefits
Back to map
Sustainable land management
Sustainable land management practices can improve the functioning of ecosystems, help regulate water cycles and limit contamination of groundwater, prevent soil erosion and salinisation, capture and store carbon and help preserve agrobiodiversity and livelihoods. Nature-based solutions can address hydrological risks and land degradation and include rewilding, land restoration, sediment trapping and wetland construction. Contour ploughing and planting hedgerows and trees help to reduce runoff, water pollution and soil erosion, increase soil moisture and reduce the impacts of droughts, as well as mitigate downstream flood risk and create habitats. Healthy soils improve crop yields.
Find out how we helped farmers in Malawi to adopt sustainable farming and forestry practices to catch eroded soil borne by rainwater runoff.
Back to map
Leaky barriers
Leaky barriers slow the flow of watercourses and provide temporary water storage, helping to delay the travel time of the flood peak. They usually consist of wood material from the riverbanks, and occasionally vegetation, and connect with areas of floodplain. Leaky barriers mirror naturally occurring obstructions, such as fallen trees that get lodged in a river or dams built by wildlife.
Co-benefits
We have introduced leaky barriers at Llanfair Talharian in Wales and piloted their introduction on the Leeds NFM project.
Back to map
River restoration
River restoration involves reinstating natural processes, such as vegetated banks and meanders, enhancing flow and habitat, restoring biodiversity and improving the health of the ecosystem. The aim is to restore the geomorphological function in terms of water and sediment movement in the river catchment, channels and floodplains. Naturally functioning rivers help mitigate flooding, deliver freshwater supplies, boost recreation, store carbon and improve health. Floodplains allow rivers to expand naturally during periods of high flows and are an essential part of the river system, helping to filter and store water and ensure the healthy functioning of rivers.
Co-benefits
Find out how we’re putting life back into waterways in Hong Kong, New York and the New Forest in the UK, and supporting the Room for the River programme in the Netherlands.
Back to map
Peatland restoration
Peatland restoration is crucial to tackling climate change. Peat captures and stores vast amounts carbon, but human activity has degraded and drained peatland in many places, with dry and eroding peat releasing carbon back into the atmosphere, adding to global warming. Blocking drainage ditches, rewetting drained peat and revegetating areas restores degraded peatland, often a habitat for critically endangered species.
Co-benefits
Back to map
Hedgerows/tree patches
Hedgerows and small patches of trees on farmland and near watercourses catch, store and filter water, mitigating the impacts of drought and flooding and helping to reduce pollution. They also stabilise soils and prevent erosion, provide wildlife habitat and linkages, support pollinators, and can act as a buffer against wind and sound as well as stop the spread of disease by keeping livestock apart.
Co-benefits
Back to map
Woodlands and forests
Reforestation restocks depleted and fragmented woodlands and afforestation creates new ones. Trees remove and store carbon from the atmosphere, reduce the risk of flooding and soil erosion and enhance local air quality. Restoring or creating woodlands supports healthy ecosystems, improves biodiversity and provides wildlife habitat and recreational space.
Co-benefits
Our reforestation and regeneration plan is helping endangered species recover in Indonesia.
Back to map
Integrated constructed wetlands
Integrated constructed wetlands (ICWs) are environmentally sustainable solutions to wastewater treatment. Constructed near farms, landfills and mines and food production and wastewater treatment plants, ICWs use naturally occurring vegetative processes to contain and treat ammonia, suspended solids and trace metals, for example. Well-designed ICWs provide aesthetic additions to the local landscape, enhancing the amenity value of the surroundings. They also improve habitat diversity and help preserve sensitive receptors.
Co-benefits
Back to map
Wetlands
Wetlands are natural infrastructure, and important for biodiversity, with about 40% of the world’s plants and animals dependent on them. They are also effective carbon sinks and provide livelihoods for millions of people.
Co-benefits
Find out about our wetland restoration in the New Forest and new wetlands at Cinderford in Gloucester.
Back to map
Natural flood management
Natural flood management (NFM) works with natural processes to reduce flood risk, often across a catchment area. Natural solutions include restoring bends in rivers, changing how land is managed so soil can absorb more water, floodplain restoration, leaky barriers, planting trees along rivers, catchment woodland and offline storage areas. NFM brings additional benefits, such as enhancing habitats, improving water quality and climate resilience and providing recreational opportunities.
Explore our NFM project to reduce the risk of flooding in Leeds and our work at Eddleston Water to quantify the value of NFM measures. Watch our video on working with nature to reduce flooding and see our NFM manual for UK construction body CIRIA.
Back to map
Catchment management
Catchment management involves managing water resources and land use practices on a river catchment scale to reduce flood risk, soil erosion, sediment build-up and pollution, and improve water quality, climate resilience and access. Catchment management balances user needs – agriculture, domestic and industry – with the aim of protecting and improving water resources for all.
Discover more about our catchment management projects in Malawi, Rwanda and at Thirlmere in Cumbria, UK.
Back to map
Plot your next steps
Biophilic design principles integrate nature and natural materials into the built environment to bring people and nature closer. They ensure space is organised and optimised for people and nature to co-exist. Measures include: vegetation in our office and home environments, natural patterns, shapes, textures and sounds, views of nature and natural solutions to deliver thermal and acoustic comfort, lighting and good air quality. Biophilic design solutions also often incorporate natural materials or materials similar to their natural counterparts. Using carbon neutral plant-based and bio-fabricated construction materials will reduce embodied carbon.
Biophilic design
Green roofs act as a rainwater buffer and an air purifier, as well as helping to reduce the ambient temperature and provide temporary storage for water. An accessible green roof is a place for meetings or recreation for a building’s occupants. It is a refuge for insects and birds in towns and cities. A green roof may also improve property values and marketability. Nature-based solutions for roofs also include blue roofs – specifically designed to store water and enable it to drain more slowly – and brown roofs, where the substrate surface is left to self-vegetate.
Green roofs
Co-benefits
Green or living walls and vertical gardens on buildings help connect people in urban areas with the natural environment, which is good for health and mental wellbeing. Structures covered in vegetation also deliver numerous other benefits, from removing air pollutants and improving biodiversity to attenuating rainwater, providing thermal insulation and reducing overheating.
Green walls
Co-benefits
Highways can benefit from nature-based solutions, with landscaping and ecological design helping to complement or offset traditional infrastructure to address climate change impacts and biodiversity loss, as well as minimise the environmental effects. Woodland schemes intercept overland flow of water, trapping and storing water before it can reach the roadside on highways susceptible to flooding. Vegetation provides carbon sequestration and air filtering and reduces a road’s environmental footprint, while delivering biodiversity net gain.
Highways
Co-benefits
See our nature-based approach for the A3 in Surrey and the Bexhill to Hastings link road in Sussex. Read more on how nature-based solutions can deliver cost savings and a greener future for highways.
Street trees contribute to the character of our urban areas, providing many benefits. Planting in cities can contribute to better air quality as they act as pollution filters that capture toxins and remove pollutants. They also provide shade for people and buildings and cooling to combat the urban heat island effect, while encouraging biodiversity and wildlife, including providing travel corridors for birds and insects.
Street trees
Co-benefits
Pocket parks are small, accessible green spaces often created on unloved, neglected or derelict, brownfield plots of land. They provide places for people to come together, helping to strengthen communities and increase climate resilience. Local businesses near these areas often enjoy a ‘placemaking dividend’ – people visit, stay longer, and return often, boosting local economies, and creating jobs.
Pocket parks
Co-benefits
Discover how a new park on abandoned land reconnected Newark with its river.
Urban green and blue networks can be established in towns and cities by repurposing abandoned rail spurs, returning culverted watercourses to open water or connecting existing habitats, such as riverbanks to create new habitats, active travel corridors, linked green spaces and places for recreation. They combine landscape, urban design and ecology, and help bring nature back into urban areas. Examples include New York City’s Highline and the Promenade Plantée in Paris.
Urban green and blue networks
Co-benefits
Find out how we’re helping to create the Arbutus Greenway in Vancouver.
Sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) manage surface water, storing and slowing runoff before it enters waterbodies. SuDS generally combine natural elements, such as retention ponds, detention basins, swales, rain gardens, soakaways, infiltration trenches and tree pits, with permeable/porous surfacing. They mimic nature by managing rainfall close to where it falls to mitigate the risk of flooding in urban areas and further downstream.
Urban SuDS
Co-benefits
Find out how SuDS are protecting homes and businesses in London, Newcastle, Philadelphia and Brooklyn.
Living shorelines are green infrastructure that uses plants, rocks and sand alone or in combination with grey infrastructure, such as sea walls, to stabilise coastal areas. Benefits include remediation of nutrient pollution, creation of fish habitats, and protection from waves and storms.
Living shorelines
Co-benefits
Our living shoreline projects in the US include the Biloxi Marsh estuary, Louisiana and La Quinta in Texas.
Beach replenishment and nourishment mitigates the effects of erosion by replacing lost sediment, and provides a wide range of benefits, including storm and wave buffer zones, recreational opportunities and protection of sand dunes. Functioning beaches attract visitors, supporting jobs and economic growth.
Beach replenishment
Co-benefits
Find out how we used 1Mt of dredged sand to reinstate the beach at Colwyn Bay, Wales.
Sand dunes are ridges or hills of sand at the rear of a beach that are formed by wind moving sand onshore. Providing space for sand dunes to shift inland as sea levels rise and stabilising them by maintaining and introducing vegetation to hold them together can help reduce flood risk to coastal communities from storms, wind and waves. Sand dunes provide habitat for a unique variety of wildlife and plants.
Sand dunes
Co-benefits
Saltmarsh and mudflat creation and restoration includes replenishing degraded saltmarshes and managed coastal realignment, which involves enabling coastal areas that had previously been reclaimed for farming to revert to their natural state. It can improve biodiversity by providing habitats for rare and valuable plant and animal species and reduce the flood risk to coastlines by creating a buffer zone between the sea and infrastructure or homes. They are also carbon stores and lock in sediment.
Saltmarsh/mudflats
Co-benefits
Discover how we helped create a new intertidal marshland in Texas.
Mangroves are important to the wellbeing of coastal zones in many places, acting as barriers against storms and sea-level rise and providing nursery grounds for fish to support fishing communities and local livelihoods. They also help to mitigate climate change, with mangrove soils locking away large quantities of carbon, and are highly productive and biologically rich ecosystems.
Mangroves
Co-benefits
Find out how we supported Indonesia’s government in its efforts to achieve sustainable development in its lowlands, including 36Mha of coastal areas.
Natural coastal management uses natural infrastructure to reduce the risks to coastal zones of climate impacts, such as sea level rise and erosion from storms, as well as protect against pollution and risks associated with land use change and development. Tidal marshes, beach nourishment, barrier islands, mangroves, seagrass, kelp forests and biogenic reefs are ways to incorporate nature and natural elements into shoreline management systems. They often increase the resilience of existing ecosystems and provide a wide range of benefits for other sectors, such as tourism and fisheries, as well as coastal protection.
Natural coastal management
Runoff management systems are physical structures that mimic natural processes to reduce and slow runoff from the land. By intercepting runoff and trapping soil and sediment before it leaves a field, ponds/scrapes, ditches/swales, sediment traps, earth bunds, hedge banks, riparian buffer strips and wetlands help maintain and manage good quality water resources by removing pollutants. They also temporarily capture water and slow down flow, reducing the risk of localised flooding, providing valuable aquatic habitats and recharging aquifers.
Runoff management
Co-benefits
Sustainable land management practices can improve the functioning of ecosystems, help regulate water cycles and limit contamination of groundwater, prevent soil erosion and salinisation, capture and store carbon and help preserve agrobiodiversity and livelihoods. Nature-based solutions can address hydrological risks and land degradation and include rewilding, land restoration, sediment trapping and wetland construction. Contour ploughing and planting hedgerows and trees help to reduce runoff, water pollution and soil erosion, increase soil moisture and reduce the impacts of droughts, as well as mitigate downstream flood risk and create habitats. Healthy soils improve crop yields.
Sustainable land management
Find out how we helped farmers in Malawi to adopt sustainable farming and forestry practices to catch eroded soil borne by rainwater runoff.
Leaky barriers slow the flow of watercourses and provide temporary water storage, helping to delay the travel time of the flood peak. They usually consist of wood material from the riverbanks, and occasionally vegetation, and connect with areas of floodplain. Leaky barriers mirror naturally occurring obstructions, such as fallen trees that get lodged in a river or dams built by wildlife.
Leaky barriers
Co-benefits
We have introduced leaky barriers at Llanfair Talharian in Wales and piloted their introduction on the Leeds NFM project.
River restoration involves reinstating natural processes, such as vegetated banks and meanders, enhancing flow and habitat, restoring biodiversity and improving the health of the ecosystem. The aim is to restore the geomorphological function in terms of water and sediment movement in the river catchment, channels and floodplains. Naturally functioning rivers help mitigate flooding, deliver freshwater supplies, boost recreation, store carbon and improve health. Floodplains allow rivers to expand naturally during periods of high flows and are an essential part of the river system, helping to filter and store water and ensure the healthy functioning of rivers.
River restoration
Co-benefits
Find out how we’re putting life back into waterways in Hong Kong, New York and the New Forest in the UK, and supporting the Room for the River programme in the Netherlands.
Peatland restoration is crucial to tackling climate change. Peat captures and stores vast amounts carbon, but human activity has degraded and drained peatland in many places, with dry and eroding peat releasing carbon back into the atmosphere, adding to global warming. Blocking drainage ditches, rewetting drained peat and revegetating areas restores degraded peatland, often a habitat for critically endangered species.
Peatland restoration
Co-benefits
Natural flood management (NFM) works with natural processes to reduce flood risk, often across a catchment area. Natural solutions include restoring bends in rivers, changing how land is managed so soil can absorb more water, floodplain restoration, leaky barriers, planting trees along rivers, catchment woodland and offline storage areas. NFM brings additional benefits, such as enhancing habitats, improving water quality and climate resilience and providing recreational opportunities.
Natural flood management
Explore our NFM project to reduce the risk of flooding in Leeds and our work at Eddleston Water to quantify the value of NFM measures. Watch our video on working with nature to reduce flooding and see our NFM manual for UK construction body CIRIA.
Catchment management involves managing water resources and land use practices on a river catchment scale to reduce flood risk, soil erosion, sediment build-up and pollution, and improve water quality, climate resilience and access. Catchment management balances user needs – agriculture, domestic and industry – with the aim of protecting and improving water resources for all.
Catchment management
Reforestation restocks depleted and fragmented woodlands and afforestation creates new ones. Trees remove and store carbon from the atmosphere, reduce the risk of flooding and soil erosion and enhance local air quality. Restoring or creating woodlands supports healthy ecosystems, improves biodiversity and provides wildlife habitat and recreational space.
Woodlands and forests
Co-benefits
Our reforestation and regeneration plan is helping endangered species recover in Indonesia.
Hedgerows and small patches of trees on farmland and near watercourses catch, store and filter water, mitigating the impacts of drought and flooding and helping to reduce pollution. They also stabilise soils and prevent erosion, provide wildlife habitat and linkages, support pollinators, and can act as a buffer against wind and sound as well as stop the spread of disease by keeping livestock apart.
Hedgerows/tree patches
Co-benefits
Integrated constructed wetlands (ICWs) are environmentally sustainable solutions to wastewater treatment. Constructed near farms, landfills and mines and food production and wastewater treatment plants, ICWs use naturally occurring vegetative processes to contain and treat ammonia, suspended solids and trace metals, for example. Well-designed ICWs provide aesthetic additions to the local landscape, enhancing the amenity value of the surroundings. They also improve habitat diversity and help preserve sensitive receptors.
Integrated constructed wetlands
Co-benefits
Wetlands are natural infrastructure, and important for biodiversity, with about 40% of the world’s plants and animals dependent on them. They are also effective carbon sinks and provide livelihoods for millions of people.
Wetlands
Co-benefits
Find out about our wetland restoration in the New Forest and new wetlands at Cinderford in Gloucester.
Talk to us.
Our six-step decision framework for nature-based solutions is a systematic and integrated approach through all stages of the project cycle. It aims to consider nature from the start of planning investment objectives to maximise co-benefits, and increase confidence around performance, costs and maintenance. Watch our video on how we can help deliver nature-based solutions.
Establish a shared vision
Look at what outcomes and co-benefits can be achieved in addition to the main project objectives. These can be regulatory requirements or organisational key performance indicators like net zero, biodiversity net gain, social outcomes. This requires systems thinking and broad stakeholder engagement. Benefits of nature-based solutions often accrue to various stakeholder groups and therefore a blended finance approach is suitable.
Identify the options for nature-based solutions
What are the range of options available? Does an option require additional solutions to secure optimal co-benefits and better outcomes?
Quantify a range of benefits from each solution and agree a preferred option
Monetising co-benefits can help drive change and secure funding. Carbon credits, biodiversity net-gain and natural capital accounting all place a value on nature and the flows of services it supplies, so they can be more readily factored into a project business case. Use a benefits framework and multi-criteria decision analysis to assess options.
Finalise design and prepare for construction
The design process should be participatory, involving all stakeholders, and focus on the specific circumstances of a place.
Implementation
During construction adaptive management is important as you are working with nature. This approach should include project planning, implementation of decisions, and ongoing monitoring and evaluation of outcomes.
Maintain, monitor, evaluate and learn
Collect evidence over time on performance, costs and maintenance, and apply the learning to future projects.
Plot your next steps
Our decision framework
Plot your next steps
Biophilic design
Biophilic design principles integrate nature and natural materials into the built environment to bring people and nature closer. They ensure space is organised and optimised for people and nature to co-exist. Measures include: vegetation in our office and home environments, natural patterns, shapes, textures and sounds, views of nature and natural solutions to deliver thermal and acoustic comfort, lighting and good air quality. Biophilic design solutions also often incorporate natural materials or materials similar to their natural counterparts. Using carbon neutral plant-based and bio-fabricated construction materials will reduce embodied carbon.
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Green roofs
Green roofs act as a rainwater buffer and an air purifier, as well as helping to reduce the ambient temperature and provide temporary storage for water. An accessible green roof is a place for meetings or recreation for a building’s occupants. It is a refuge for insects and birds in towns and cities. A green roof may also improve property values and marketability. Nature-based solutions for roofs also include blue roofs – specifically designed to store water and enable it to drain more slowly – and brown roofs, where the substrate surface is left to self-vegetate.
Co-benefits
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Green walls
Green or living walls and vertical gardens on buildings help connect people in urban areas with the natural environment, which is good for health and mental wellbeing. Structures covered in vegetation also deliver numerous other benefits, from removing air pollutants and improving biodiversity to attenuating rainwater, providing thermal insulation and reducing overheating.
Co-benefits
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Highways can benefit from nature-based solutions, with landscaping and ecological design helping to complement or offset traditional infrastructure to address climate change impacts and biodiversity loss, as well as minimise the environmental effects. Woodland schemes intercept overland flow of water, trapping and storing water before it can reach the roadside on highways susceptible to flooding. Vegetation provides carbon sequestration and air filtering and reduces a road’s environmental footprint, while delivering biodiversity net gain.
Co-benefits
See our nature-based approach for the A3 in Surrey and the Bexhill to Hastings link road in Sussex. Read more on how nature-based solutions can deliver cost savings and a greener future for highways.
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Highways
Street trees
Street trees contribute to the character of our urban areas, providing many benefits. Planting in cities can contribute to better air quality as they act as pollution filters that capture toxins and remove pollutants. They also provide shade for people and buildings and cooling to combat the urban heat island effect, while encouraging biodiversity and wildlife, including providing travel corridors for birds and insects.
Co-benefits
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Pocket parks
Pocket parks are small, accessible green spaces often created on unloved, neglected or derelict, brownfield plots of land. They provide places for people to come together, helping to strengthen communities and increase climate resilience. Local businesses near these areas often enjoy a ‘placemaking dividend’ – people visit, stay longer, and return often, boosting local economies, and creating jobs.
Co-benefits
Discover how a new park on abandoned land reconnected Newark with its river.
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Co-benefits
Urban green and blue networks
Urban green and blue networks can be established in towns and cities by repurposing abandoned rail spurs, returning culverted watercourses to open water or connecting existing habitats, such as riverbanks to create new habitats, active travel corridors, linked green spaces and places for recreation. They combine landscape, urban design and ecology, and help bring nature back into urban areas. Examples include New York City’s Highline and the Promenade Plantée in Paris.
Find out how we’re helping to create the Arbutus Greenway in Vancouver.
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Urban SuDS
Sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) manage surface water, storing and slowing runoff before it enters waterbodies. SuDS generally combine natural elements, such as retention ponds, detention basins, swales, rain gardens, soakaways, infiltration trenches and tree pits, with permeable/porous surfacing. They mimic nature by managing rainfall close to where it falls to mitigate the risk of flooding in urban areas and further downstream.
Co-benefits
Find out how SuDS are protecting homes and businesses in London, Newcastle, Philadelphia and Brooklyn.
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Living shorelines
Living shorelines are green infrastructure that uses plants, rocks and sand alone or in combination with grey infrastructure, such as sea walls, to stabilise coastal areas. Benefits include remediation of nutrient pollution, creation of fish habitats, and protection from waves and storms.
Co-benefits
Our living shoreline projects in the US include the Biloxi Marsh estuary, Louisiana and La Quinta in Texas.
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Beach replenishment
Beach replenishment and nourishment mitigates the effects of erosion by replacing lost sediment, and provides a wide range of benefits, including storm and wave buffer zones, recreational opportunities and protection of sand dunes. Functioning beaches attract visitors, supporting jobs and economic growth.
Co-benefits
Find out how we used 1Mt of dredged sand to reinstate the beach at Colwyn Bay, Wales.
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Sand dunes
Sand dunes are ridges or hills of sand at the rear of a beach that are formed by wind moving sand onshore. Providing space for sand dunes to shift inland as sea levels rise and stabilising them by maintaining and introducing vegetation to hold them together can help reduce flood risk to coastal communities from storms, wind and waves. Sand dunes provide habitat for a unique variety of wildlife and plants.
Co-benefits
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Saltmarsh/mudflats
Saltmarsh and mudflat creation and restoration includes replenishing degraded saltmarshes and managed coastal realignment, which involves enabling coastal areas that had previously been reclaimed for farming to revert to their natural state. It can improve biodiversity by providing habitats for rare and valuable plant and animal species and reduce the flood risk to coastlines by creating a buffer zone between the sea and infrastructure or homes. They are also carbon stores and lock in sediment.
Co-benefits
Discover how we helped create a new intertidal marshland in Texas.
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Mangroves
Mangroves are important to the wellbeing of coastal zones in many places, acting as barriers against storms and sea-level rise and providing nursery grounds for fish to support fishing communities and local livelihoods. They also help to mitigate climate change, with mangrove soils locking away large quantities of carbon, and are highly productive and biologically rich ecosystems.
Co-benefits
Find out how we supported Indonesia’s government in its efforts to achieve sustainable development in its lowlands, including 36Mha of coastal areas.
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Natural coastal management
Natural coastal management uses natural infrastructure to reduce the risks to coastal zones of climate impacts, such as sea level rise and erosion from storms, as well as protect against pollution and risks associated with land use change and development. Tidal marshes, beach nourishment, barrier islands, mangroves, seagrass, kelp forests and biogenic reefs are ways to incorporate nature and natural elements into shoreline management systems. They often increase the resilience of existing ecosystems and provide a wide range of benefits for other sectors, such as tourism and fisheries, as well as coastal protection.
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Runoff management
Runoff management systems are physical structures that mimic natural processes to reduce and slow runoff from the land. By intercepting runoff and trapping soil and sediment before it leaves a field, ponds/scrapes, ditches/swales, sediment traps, earth bunds, hedge banks, riparian buffer strips and wetlands help maintain and manage good quality water resources by removing pollutants. They also temporarily capture water and slow down flow, reducing the risk of localised flooding, providing valuable aquatic habitats and recharging aquifers.
Co-benefits
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Sustainable land management
Sustainable land management practices can improve the functioning of ecosystems, help regulate water cycles and limit contamination of groundwater, prevent soil erosion and salinisation, capture and store carbon and help preserve agrobiodiversity and livelihoods. Nature-based solutions can address hydrological risks and land degradation and include rewilding, land restoration, sediment trapping and wetland construction. Contour ploughing and planting hedgerows and trees help to reduce runoff, water pollution and soil erosion, increase soil moisture and reduce the impacts of droughts, as well as mitigate downstream flood risk and create habitats. Healthy soils improve crop yields.
Find out how we helped farmers in Malawi to adopt sustainable farming and forestry practices to catch eroded soil borne by rainwater runoff.
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Leaky barriers
Leaky barriers slow the flow of watercourses and provide temporary water storage, helping to delay the travel time of the flood peak. They usually consist of wood material from the riverbanks, and occasionally vegetation, and connect with areas of floodplain. Leaky barriers mirror naturally occurring obstructions, such as fallen trees that get lodged in a river or dams built by wildlife.
Co-benefits
We have introduced leaky barriers at Llanfair Talharian in Wales and piloted their introduction on the Leeds NFM project.
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River restoration
River restoration involves reinstating natural processes, such as vegetated banks and meanders, enhancing flow and habitat, restoring biodiversity and improving the health of the ecosystem. The aim is to restore the geomorphological function in terms of water and sediment movement in the river catchment, channels and floodplains. Naturally functioning rivers help mitigate flooding, deliver freshwater supplies, boost recreation, store carbon and improve health. Floodplains allow rivers to expand naturally during periods of high flows and are an essential part of the river system, helping to filter and store water and ensure the healthy functioning of rivers.
Co-benefits
Find out how we’re putting life back into waterways in Hong Kong, New York and the New Forest in the UK, and supporting the Room for the River programme in the Netherlands.
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Peatland restoration
Peatland restoration is crucial to tackling climate change. Peat captures and stores vast amounts carbon, but human activity has degraded and drained peatland in many places, with dry and eroding peat releasing carbon back into the atmosphere, adding to global warming. Blocking drainage ditches, rewetting drained peat and revegetating areas restores degraded peatland, often a habitat for critically endangered species.
Co-benefits
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Hedgerows/tree patches
Hedgerows and small patches of trees on farmland and near watercourses catch, store and filter water, mitigating the impacts of drought and flooding and helping to reduce pollution. They also stabilise soils and prevent erosion, provide wildlife habitat and linkages, support pollinators, and can act as a buffer against wind and sound as well as stop the spread of disease by keeping livestock apart.
Co-benefits
Back to map
Woodlands and forests
Reforestation restocks depleted and fragmented woodlands and afforestation creates new ones. Trees remove and store carbon from the atmosphere, reduce the risk of flooding and soil erosion and enhance local air quality. Restoring or creating woodlands supports healthy ecosystems, improves biodiversity and provides wildlife habitat and recreational space.
Co-benefits
Our reforestation and regeneration plan is helping endangered species recover in Indonesia.
Back to map
Integrated constructed wetlands
Integrated constructed wetlands (ICWs) are environmentally sustainable solutions to wastewater treatment. Constructed near farms, landfills and mines and food production and wastewater treatment plants, ICWs use naturally occurring vegetative processes to contain and treat ammonia, suspended solids and trace metals, for example. Well-designed ICWs provide aesthetic additions to the local landscape, enhancing the amenity value of the surroundings. They also improve habitat diversity and help preserve sensitive receptors.
Co-benefits
Back to map
Wetlands
Wetlands are natural infrastructure, and important for biodiversity, with about 40% of the world’s plants and animals dependent on them. They are also effective carbon sinks and provide livelihoods for millions of people.
Co-benefits
Find out about our wetland restoration in the New Forest and new wetlands at Cinderford in Gloucester.
Back to map
Natural flood management
Natural flood management (NFM) works with natural processes to reduce flood risk, often across a catchment area. Natural solutions include restoring bends in rivers, changing how land is managed so soil can absorb more water, floodplain restoration, leaky barriers, planting trees along rivers, catchment woodland and offline storage areas. NFM brings additional benefits, such as enhancing habitats, improving water quality and climate resilience and providing recreational opportunities.
Explore our NFM project to reduce the risk of flooding in Leeds and our work at Eddleston Water to quantify the value of NFM measures. Watch our video on working with nature to reduce flooding and see our NFM manual for UK construction body CIRIA.
Back to map
Catchment management
Catchment management involves managing water resources and land use practices on a river catchment scale to reduce flood risk, soil erosion, sediment build-up and pollution, and improve water quality, climate resilience and access. Catchment management balances user needs – agriculture, domestic and industry – with the aim of protecting and improving water resources for all.
Discover more about our catchment management projects in Malawi, Rwanda and at Thirlmere in Cumbria, UK
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Step 1
Establish a shared vision
Step 2
Identify the options for nature-based solutions
Step 3
Quantify a range of benefits from each solution and agree a preferred option
Step 4
Finalise design and prepare for construction
Step 5
Implementation
Step 6
Maintain, monitor, evaluate and learn
Our decision framework
Our six-step decision framework for nature-based solutions is a systematic and integrated approach through all stages of the project cycle. It aims to consider nature from the start of planning investment objectives to maximise co-benefits, and increase confidence around performance, costs and maintenance.
Click on each step to explore more and watch our video on how we can help deliver nature-based solutions.
Look at what outcomes and co-benefits can be achieved in addition to the main project objectives. These can be regulatory requirements or organisational key performance indicators like net zero, biodiversity net gain, social outcomes. This requires systems thinking and broad stakeholder engagement. Benefits of nature-based solutions often accrue to various stakeholder groups and therefore a blended finance approach is suitable.
Step 1
Establish a shared vision
Step 2
Identify the options for nature-based solutions
Step 3
Quantify a range of benefits from each solution and agree a preferred option
Step 4
Finalise design and prepare for construction
Step 5
Implementation
Step 6
Maintain, monitor, evaluate and learn
Our decision framework
Our six-step decision framework for nature-based solutions is a systematic and integrated approach through all stages of the project cycle. It aims to consider nature from the start of planning investment objectives to maximise co-benefits, and increase confidence around performance, costs and maintenance.
Click on each step to explore more and watch our video on how we can help deliver nature-based solutions.
What are the range of options available? Does an option require additional solutions to secure optimal co-benefits and better outcomes?
Step 1
Establish a shared vision
Step 2
Identify the options for nature-based solutions
Step 3
Quantify a range of benefits from each solution and agree a preferred option
Step 4
Finalise design and prepare for construction
Step 5
Implementation
Step 6
Maintain, monitor, evaluate and learn
Our decision framework
Our six-step decision framework for nature-based solutions is a systematic and integrated approach through all stages of the project cycle. It aims to consider nature from the start of planning investment objectives to maximise co-benefits, and increase confidence around performance, costs and maintenance.
Click on each step to explore more and watch our video on how we can help deliver nature-based solutions.
Monetising co-benefits can help drive change and secure funding. Carbon credits, biodiversity net-gain and natural capital accounting all place a value on nature and the flows of services it supplies, so they can be more readily factored into a project business case. Use a benefits framework and multi-criteria decision analysis to assess options.
Step 3
Quantify a range of benefits from each solution and agree a preferred option
Step 1
Establish a shared vision
Step 4
Finalise design and prepare for construction
Step 5
Implementation
Step 6
Maintain, monitor, evaluate and learn
Step 2
Identify the options for nature-based solutions
Our decision framework
Our six-step decision framework for nature-based solutions is a systematic and integrated approach through all stages of the project cycle. It aims to consider nature from the start of planning investment objectives to maximise co-benefits, and increase confidence around performance, costs and maintenance.
Click on each step to explore more and watch our video on how we can help deliver nature-based solutions.
The design process should be participatory, involving all stakeholders, and focus on the specific circumstances of a place.
Step 4
Finalise design and prepare for construction
Step 1
Establish a shared vision
Step 5
Implementation
Step 6
Maintain, monitor, evaluate and learn
Step 2
Identify the options for nature-based solutions
Step 3
Quantify a range of benefits from each solution and agree a preferred option
Our decision framework
Our six-step decision framework for nature-based solutions is a systematic and integrated approach through all stages of the project cycle. It aims to consider nature from the start of planning investment objectives to maximise co-benefits, and increase confidence around performance, costs and maintenance.
Click on each step to explore more and watch our video on how we can help deliver nature-based solutions.
During construction adaptive management is important as you are working with nature. This approach should include project planning, implementation of decisions, and ongoing monitoring and evaluation of outcomes.
Step 5
Implementation
Step 1
Establish a shared vision
Step 6
Maintain, monitor, evaluate and learn
Step 2
Identify the options for nature-based solutions
Step 3
Quantify a range of benefits from each solution and agree a preferred option
Step 4
Finalise design and prepare for construction
Our decision framework
Our six-step decision framework for nature-based solutions is a systematic and integrated approach through all stages of the project cycle. It aims to consider nature from the start of planning investment objectives to maximise co-benefits, and increase confidence around performance, costs and maintenance.
Click on each step to explore more and watch our video on how we can help deliver nature-based solutions.
Collect evidence over time on performance, costs and maintenance, and apply the learning to future projects.
Step 6
Maintain, monitor, evaluate and learn
Step 1
Establish a shared vision
Step 2
Identify the options for nature-based solutions
Step 3
Quantify a range of benefits from each solution and agree a preferred option
Step 4
Finalise design and prepare for construction
Step 5
Implementation
Our decision framework
Our six-step decision framework for nature-based solutions is a systematic and integrated approach through all stages of the project cycle. It aims to consider nature from the start of planning investment objectives to maximise co-benefits, and increase confidence around performance, costs and maintenance.
Click on each step to explore more and watch our video on how we can help deliver nature-based solutions.
Talk to us.
Our decision framework
Our six-step decision framework for nature-based solutions is a systematic and integrated approach through all stages of the project cycle. It aims to consider nature from the start of planning investment objectives to maximise co-benefits, and increase confidence around performance, costs and maintenance. Watch our video on how we can help deliver nature-based solutions.
Establish a shared vision
Look at what outcomes and co-benefits can be achieved in addition to the main project objectives. These can be regulatory requirements or organisational key performance indicators like net zero, biodiversity net gain, social outcomes. This requires systems thinking and broad stakeholder engagement. Benefits of nature-based solutions often accrue to various stakeholder groups and therefore a blended finance approach is suitable.
Identify the options for nature-based solutions
What are the range of options available? Does an option require additional solutions to secure optimal co-benefits and better outcomes?
Quantify a range of benefits from each solution and agree a preferred option
Monetising co-benefits can help drive change and secure funding. Carbon credits, biodiversity net-gain and natural capital accounting all place a value on nature and the flows of services it supplies, so they can be more readily factored into a project business case. Use a benefits framework and multi-criteria decision analysis to assess options.
Finalise design and prepare for construction
The design process should be participatory, involving all stakeholders, and focus on the specific circumstances of a place.
Implementation
During construction adaptive management is important as you are working with nature. This approach should include project planning, implementation of decisions, and ongoing monitoring and evaluation of outcomes.
Maintain, monitor, evaluate and learn
Collect evidence over time on performance, costs and maintenance, and apply the learning to future projects.
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5
Step 6
Talk to us.
Our decision framework
Our six-step decision framework for nature-based solutions is a systematic and integrated approach through all stages of the project cycle. It aims to consider nature from the start of planning investment objectives to maximise co-benefits, and increase confidence around performance, costs and maintenance.
Click on each step to explore more and watch our video on how we can help deliver nature-based solutions.
Look at what outcomes and co-benefits can be achieved in addition to the main project objectives. These can be regulatory requirements or organisational key performance indicators like net zero, biodiversity net gain, social outcomes. This requires systems thinking and broad stakeholder engagement. Benefits of nature-based solutions often accrue to various stakeholder groups and therefore a blended finance approach is suitable.
Step 1
Establish a shared vision
Step 2
Identify the options for nature-based solutions
Step 3
Quantify a range of benefits from each solution and agree a preferred option
Step 4
Finalise design and prepare for construction
Step 5
Implementation
Step 6
Maintain, monitor, evaluate and learn
Step 2
Identify the options for nature-based solutions
Step 3
Quantify a range of benefits from each solution and agree a preferred option
Step 4
Finalise design and prepare for construction
Step 5
Implementation
Step 6
Maintain, monitor, evaluate and learn
What are the range of options available? Does an option require additional solutions to secure optimal co-benefits and better outcomes?
Step 1
Establish a shared vision
Step 1
Establish a shared vision
Step 2
Identify the options for nature-based solutions
Step 3
Quantify a range of benefits from each solution and agree a preferred option
Step 4
Finalise design and prepare for construction
Step 5
Implementation
Step 6
Maintain, monitor, evaluate and learn
Monetising co-benefits can help drive change and secure funding. Carbon credits, biodiversity net-gain and natural capital accounting all place a value on nature and the flows of services it supplies, so they can be more readily factored into a project business case. Use a benefits framework and multi-criteria decision analysis to assess options.
Step 1
Establish a shared vision
Step 2
Identify the options for nature-based solutions
Step 3
Quantify a range of benefits from each solution and agree a preferred option
Step 4
Finalise design and prepare for construction
Step 5
Implementation
Step 6
Maintain, monitor, evaluate and learn
The design process should be participatory, involving all stakeholders, and focus on the specific circumstances of a place.
Step 1
Establish a shared vision
Step 2
Identify the options for nature-based solutions
Step 3
Quantify a range of benefits from each solution and agree a preferred option
Step 4
Finalise design and prepare for construction
Step 5
Implementation
Step 6
Maintain, monitor, evaluate and learn
During construction adaptive management is important as you are working with nature. This approach should include project planning, implementation of decisions, and ongoing monitoring and evaluation of outcomes.
Step 1
Establish a shared vision
Step 2
Identify the options for nature-based solutions
Step 3
Quantify a range of benefits from each solution and agree a preferred option
Step 4
Finalise design and prepare for construction
Step 5
Implementation
Step 6
Maintain, monitor, evaluate and learn
Collect evidence over time on performance, costs and maintenance, and apply the learning to future projects.
Talk to us.