In June this year, the global community will gather in Stockholm to celebrate 50 years of environmental action. “Stockholm +50: a healthy planet for the prosperity of all – our responsibility, our opportunity”, the international civil society will be meeting under the umbrella of the Decade of Action to discuss how to accelerate the implementation of sustainable development to address the triple planetary crises – climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.

While this high-level meeting will be between country governments, it is clear that action must be taken also at the local level if real systemic change is to be achieved. Nature has been forced out of our cities for some time now. Cities and regions have a key role to play in protecting biodiversity and taking transformational climate action to the neighbourhood.

Cities around the world are experiencing rapid growth, both in terms of landcover expansion and in population growth. Depending on the way these cities are planned, it has a dramatic impact on biodiversity loss. The good news is that cities, have ample opportunity to ensure a green and inclusive pathway towards achieving many, if not all, of the Sustainable Development Goals through greater investments in nature. By estimating the value of nature and how the lack of nature is affecting people and planet we could create green jobs, improve urban health and livelihoods, and create more equitable societies.

Cities are facing many challenges and institutional barriers in making peace with nature and fighting biodiversity loss. Both climate change and pollution threaten biodiversity and the natural ecosystem in and around cities. Additionally, there is a need to build stronger institutional, motivational, and technological capacities in many cities, especially in the global south where financial barriers are exacerbated. Large and rapidly expanding cities sometimes further complicate these already complex challenges. This is where interventions at the neighbourhood level come in, as they are the systems that communities are most connected to and allow cities to tackle complex issues at a smaller size, more manageable scale[1].

Bringing Nature back to Cities with NbS

Nature-based Solution (NbS) use the tools provided by nature to address a range of issues: urban sprawl, species extinction, global warming, extreme weather events, zoonotic diseases, and societal challenges. Nature-based Solutions can enhance the resilience of ecosystems, including the built environment, and address societal challenges such as environmental, eco-system functionality, socio-economic, financial, developmental, sustainability, and health issues[2].

Within cities, NbS can take the form of developing or restoring green spaces (parks, trees and grasses along roads and slopes, and community gardens) or integrating green building techniques in infrastructure projects. These types of NbS can reduce the urban heat island effect and cooling needs through natural shading, manage water run-off, and improve health and well-being. In peri-urban areas, local governments could restore the productive capacity of degraded land, introducing sustainable farming techniques, or protecting mangroves and other ecosystems which provided several benefits from CO2 sequestration to watershed management.

Not only do NbS support ecosystem regeneration but there are many socio-economic benefits[3] for urban populations. Implementing NbS has the potential to enhance sustainable urban development and resilience through its climate-related risk reduction benefits. The economic benefits, while not widely known, have immediate and long-term effects. The jobs created in the short-term support a sustainable and just transition to a greener urban economy which can lead to a long-term sustainable system.

An Investment Gap that Must be Bridged

Cities and neighbourhoods have a wide range of innovative financing and policy mechanisms at their disposal, but there is currently a large financing gap when it comes to Nature-based solutions. The main challenge is scaling up NbS investment because it is currently being deterred due to market failures. The main failure is that the Return on Investment (ROI), regarding the goods and services which Nature-based solutions provide, are not easily understood or clearly defined by the government. As a result, public-sector financing accounts for 86% of the global $133 billion invested in NbS, while the private sector contributes merely $18 billion, primarily through sustainable supply chains and biodiversity offsets[4].

The public sector is key in growing the overall investment of NbS by leveraging their public financing and policy mechanisms to encourage private investments. The steps municipalities can take to further scale up financing take are:

• Set short-term and long-term targets for NbS,
• Create a market for Nature-based Solution investment by implementing clear and relevant policy and regulatory framework that supports revenue streams for assets,
• Provide market support through risk allocation and mitigation,
• Invest in mechanisms and incentives for intermunicipal collaboration (city and suburbs),
• Use COVID-19 recovery programs to spur NbS in cities,
• Reduce environmentally harmful subsidies while utilizing fiscal instruments to motivate firms to avoid activities which negatively impact the environment.

Natural Capital Considerations at Stockholm +50

While there are a range of environmental, social, and economic challenges cities are facing, increasing investment in Nature-based Solutions has the potential to alleviate many of them. Specifically, municipalities are playing a vital role in supporting the efforts to bring nature back into city. It is important to overcome the barriers of low private sector investment and insufficient local policy and regulatory frameworks. In this way, a shift in the investor’s mindset, from investing in harmful extractive environmental activities to increasing investment for nature as a means to supporting economic growth, will become possible.