Playbook: adopting nature-based solutions in 90 days

$154 billion flows into nature-based solutions annually, yet UNEP estimates this must reach $384 billion by 2025 to meet global climate and biodiversity targets—a 2.5x increase within 12 months. For UK-based product and design teams, this funding gap represents both an urgent mandate and an unprecedented opportunity to integrate natural capital strategies that deliver measurable environmental returns while capturing emerging value pools worth an estimated $7.3 trillion globally.

Why It Matters

Nature-based solutions (NbS) represent a paradigm shift from purely technological climate interventions toward leveraging ecosystems for carbon sequestration, flood mitigation, urban cooling, and biodiversity restoration. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, NbS can deliver up to 37% of the CO₂ emissions reductions needed by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5°C—yet these solutions remain chronically underfunded compared to their potential impact.

The economic stakes are substantial. The Taskforce on Nature Markets values total nature-based goods and services at $7.3 trillion, while the World Economic Forum estimates that $44 trillion of economic value—representing 50% of global GDP—depends on healthy ecosystems. Despite this, private sector investment in NbS currently accounts for only 14% of total funding (approximately $22 billion annually), with the public sector covering the remaining 86%.

For UK organisations specifically, the government's 25 Year Environment Plan and the Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) create regulatory and financial incentives for NbS adoption. The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), which released final recommendations in September 2023, is driving institutional investors to demand nature-positive strategies from portfolio companies. Early movers who establish robust NbS programmes within the next 90 days position themselves advantageously for both compliance requirements and access to an expanding pool of green finance instruments.

Key Concepts

Defining Nature-Based Solutions

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) defines NbS as "actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits." This encompasses a spectrum of interventions:

Ecosystem Restoration: Rewilding degraded landscapes, reforestation programmes, peatland restoration, and coastal wetland rehabilitation. The UK has approximately 3 million hectares of degraded peatland, which currently emits an estimated 23 million tonnes of CO₂ annually—restoration could convert these from carbon sources to carbon sinks.

Urban Green Infrastructure: Green roofs, urban forests, sustainable drainage systems (SuDS), and bioswales that manage stormwater, reduce urban heat island effects, and improve air quality. Research from the UK Green Building Council indicates that strategic urban greening can reduce local temperatures by 2-8°C during heatwaves.

Natural Flood Management: Leaky dams, buffer strips, wetland creation, and river re-meandering that slow water flow and reduce peak flood levels. The Environment Agency's Working with Natural Processes programme has documented cost-benefit ratios exceeding 5:1 for well-designed natural flood management schemes.

Biodiversity Net Gain: Following the Environment Act 2021, all new developments in England require a minimum 10% biodiversity net gain, creating market mechanisms for habitat creation and restoration.

Sector-Specific KPIs

Sector	Primary KPI	Secondary KPIs	Benchmark Target
Real Estate	Biodiversity Net Gain Units	Urban cooling effect (°C), Stormwater retention (m³)	>10% BNG minimum
Agriculture	Soil Organic Carbon (t C/ha)	Pollinator species count, Water infiltration rate	0.4% annual SOC increase
Water Utilities	Natural Capital Value (£/ha)	Flood risk reduction (%), Treatment cost savings (£)	15% cost reduction vs grey infrastructure
Financial Services	TNFD-aligned disclosures	Nature-positive portfolio %	Full TNFD alignment by 2025
Consumer Goods	Supply chain deforestation-free (%)	Regenerative sourcing (tonnes)	100% verified by 2025

What's Working

Integrated Landscape Approaches

The UK's Landscape Enterprise Networks (LENs), pioneered by 3Keel, demonstrate how cross-sector collaboration unlocks value from nature. The Wye & Usk LEN has aggregated demand from water companies, food manufacturers, and conservation bodies to fund catchment-scale interventions. Welsh Water, Heineken, and the National Trust collectively invested in natural flood management and agricultural transitions across 200,000 hectares, achieving documented improvements in water quality metrics whilst generating verified carbon credits.

Blended Finance Mechanisms

HSBC's Pollination Climate Asset Management fund has deployed over $1 billion in nature-based projects globally, demonstrating that market-rate returns (approximately 80% of NbS projects achieve commercial returns according to UNEP data) can align with environmental outcomes. In the UK, the Finance Earth team structured the Revere fund to channel institutional capital into landscape-scale restoration, with returns generated through ecosystem service payments, biodiversity credits, and sustainable agriculture premiums.

Technology-Enabled Monitoring

Nature tech startups attracted approximately $2 billion in investment through 2024, with the market projected to reach $6 billion within the decade. Companies like Treeconomy (UK-based carbon credit platform using satellite monitoring) and Planet Watchers (deforestation risk analytics) enable real-time verification of NbS outcomes—addressing the additionality and permanence concerns that previously constrained institutional investment in nature-based carbon credits.

What's Not Working

Fragmented Policy Implementation

Despite strong national commitments, local authority capacity to implement NbS remains inconsistent. A 2024 survey by the Town and Country Planning Association found that only 34% of English planning authorities had developed specific NbS guidance, and fewer than 20% had dedicated biodiversity officers. This creates implementation bottlenecks that delay project approvals and undermine private sector confidence.

Carbon Credit Integrity Challenges

The voluntary carbon market experienced significant credibility challenges in 2023-2024, with investigative reporting questioning the additionality of certain forestry and avoided deforestation credits. While improved standards from the Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets (ICVCM) are addressing these concerns, the reputational damage has caused corporate buyers to proceed cautiously—only 33% of companies with net-zero targets plan to use nature-based removals according to Net Zero Tracker data, with just 4% setting dedicated removal targets.

Misaligned Incentive Structures

Agricultural transitions to regenerative practices face a 3-5 year payback period during which yields may temporarily decline. Without bridging finance and guaranteed offtake agreements, smallholder farmers bear disproportionate transition risk. The Sustainable Food Trust estimates that UK farms require £50-150 per hectare annually in transition support—funding that current ELMS payment rates do not fully cover.

Key Players

Established Leaders

Severn Trent Water: The UK's second-largest water company has invested over £30 million in natural capital programmes since 2020, including catchment management across 500,000 hectares and urban SuDS installations serving 2 million customers.

Nestlé UK: Committed to regenerative agriculture transitions across its UK dairy and cereals supply chains, with a target of 50% of key ingredients sourced regeneratively by 2025 and verified through the Landscape Enterprise Networks programme.

Lloyds Banking Group: Launched a £15 million Environmental Transformation Fund supporting customers' NbS investments, alongside internal commitments to nature-positive operations across 1,700 UK sites.

Emerging Startups

Treeconomy (London): Raised £7 million Series A in 2024 for AI-powered carbon credit verification platform enabling real-time monitoring of woodland carbon projects.

UNDO Carbon (Edinburgh): Secured $30 million to scale enhanced rock weathering—a nature-adjacent solution that accelerates natural CO₂ mineralisation through basite dust application to agricultural land.

Revere (Oxford): Finance Earth-backed landscape restoration vehicle targeting £1 billion in UK natural capital investments over the next decade.

Key Investors & Funders

Climate Asset Management (HSBC/Pollination JV): Over $2 billion AUM dedicated to nature-based solutions globally, with active UK deployment.

Gresham House: Manages £7 billion including significant forestry and sustainable land management portfolios across the UK.

Green Finance Institute: Government-backed catalytic body accelerating NbS finance innovation through initiatives like the Finance Gap for Nature programme.

Real-World Examples

Welsh Water's Brecon Beacons Peatland Partnership: In collaboration with the National Trust and Natural Resources Wales, Welsh Water invested £4.2 million to restore 3,500 hectares of upland peat. Within three years, water colouration levels (a key treatment cost driver) reduced by 40%, saving an estimated £1.2 million annually in treatment costs whilst sequestering an additional 8,500 tonnes of CO₂ annually. The project demonstrates how water utility customers effectively fund landscape restoration through minor tariff adjustments.
Unilever's Regenerative Agriculture Programme in East Anglia: Working with 150 UK farms supplying crops for Ben & Jerry's and Hellmann's, Unilever implemented cover cropping, reduced tillage, and integrated livestock rotation. Soil organic matter increased by an average of 0.3% annually, whilst input costs decreased by 15% due to reduced fertiliser requirements. The programme now sources over 50,000 tonnes of regeneratively-produced ingredients annually and serves as a template for the company's global ambitions.
City of London Corporation's Urban Greening Factor: The Square Mile implemented mandatory urban greening requirements for all new developments, requiring a minimum Urban Greening Factor score of 0.3 for commercial buildings. The 22 Bishopsgate development incorporated 11,000 square metres of green infrastructure including intensive roof gardens, façade planting, and integrated sustainable drainage. Measured outcomes include 15% reduction in surface water runoff peaks and documented biodiversity improvements including 23 pollinator species recorded on-site.

Action Checklist

Days 1-15: Conduct baseline natural capital assessment using the Natural Capital Protocol framework—map dependencies and impacts across operations and supply chain
Days 16-30: Engage with TNFD early adopter programme and identify material nature-related risks and opportunities for disclosure planning
Days 31-45: Identify priority intervention sites through multi-criteria analysis incorporating carbon potential, biodiversity baseline, co-benefit delivery, and cost-effectiveness
Days 46-60: Develop partnerships with established NbS delivery organisations (Wildlife Trusts, Rivers Trusts, Woodland Trust) to access implementation expertise
Days 61-75: Structure financing through blended capital stack—explore DEFRA Environmental Land Management payments, Woodland Carbon Guarantee, and private investment vehicles
Days 76-85: Establish monitoring, reporting, and verification protocols using satellite data and ground-truthing partnerships with academic institutions
Days 86-90: Launch initial pilot project(s) with documented learning framework to enable rapid iteration and scale-up planning

FAQ

Q: What is the typical payback period for corporate NbS investments? A: Payback periods vary significantly by intervention type. Urban SuDS typically achieve 5-7 year paybacks through avoided infrastructure costs. Forestry projects require 15-25 year horizons but generate interim returns through verified carbon credits. Regenerative agriculture transitions show 3-5 year paybacks once yield improvements stabilise. UNEP data indicates approximately 80% of NbS projects achieve market-rate returns, though patient capital and blended finance structures improve viability for longer-duration interventions.

Q: How do we verify that our NbS investments deliver genuine environmental outcomes? A: Robust monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) combines satellite remote sensing (for canopy cover, land use change, and vegetation indices), ground-based sampling (soil carbon cores, biodiversity surveys), and standardised methodologies such as the Woodland Carbon Code for UK forestry projects. The Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets (ICVCM) Core Carbon Principles provide a credibility framework for carbon credit investments, whilst Biodiversity Net Gain calculations follow Natural England's metric.

Q: What happens if our NbS project fails to deliver expected outcomes—are investments at risk? A: Project delivery risk is genuine—extreme weather, disease outbreaks, or management failures can undermine outcomes. Mitigation strategies include buffer pools (retaining a percentage of credits as insurance against reversals), diversified portfolios across multiple sites and intervention types, performance-linked payment structures with delivery partners, and insurance products specifically designed for natural capital investments. Larger landscape-scale programmes inherently carry lower site-specific risk.

Q: How should we approach Scope 3 emissions reductions through NbS when guidance remains evolving? A: The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) currently permits high-quality carbon removals to address residual emissions only after achieving deep value chain decarbonisation. For near-term action, focus NbS investments on inset projects within your own supply chain (e.g., regenerative agriculture transitions for agricultural commodities you source) rather than offset purchases. This approach generates verified emissions reductions directly attributable to your value chain whilst building supply chain resilience and demonstrating credible climate leadership.

Q: What UK-specific regulations and incentives should we be aware of for 2025-2026? A: Key frameworks include the Environment Act 2021's mandatory 10% Biodiversity Net Gain for developments (fully effective January 2024), the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and Countryside Stewardship payments under ELMS, the Woodland Carbon Guarantee providing government-backed carbon credit purchases, and emerging TNFD alignment expectations from major institutional investors. The Financial Conduct Authority's sustainability disclosure requirements (SDR) increasingly expect nature-related risk assessment alongside climate disclosures.

Sources

United Nations Environment Programme (2024). "State of Finance for Nature 2024." UNEP, Nairobi.
Taskforce on Nature Markets (2024). "The Future of Nature Markets." The Economics of Nature.
Net Zero Tracker (2025). "Net Zero Stocktake 2025." Oxford Net Zero, NewClimate Institute, Data-Driven EnviroLab.
Nature4Climate (2024). "Nature Tech Market Report 2024: Integrating Nature Tech."
Natural England (2024). "Biodiversity Net Gain: Metric 4.0 User Guide."
Environment Agency (2023). "Working with Natural Processes: Evidence Directory."