🌿 Event Recap: Mainstreaming Nature into Infrastructure 🌿
One of the more meaningful moments for me at COP16, was moderating a key panel discussion curated by Kate Newman (Vice President Sustainable Infrastructure, WWF US and Infrastructure and Nature Coalition coordinator) on mainstreaming Nature into infrastructure.
Taking place on Business and Finance day, our goal was to dig into how banks and infrastructure designers can collaborate more effectively to support delivery of COP16 Agenda item 17 on “Mainstreaming of biodiversity within and across sectors”, Agenda item 12 on capacity building and development, technical and scientific cooperation, and Agenda item 18 on diverse values of biodiversity. Hosted by the Infrastructure and Nature Coalition, it was a remarkable and necessary gathering of leaders in conservation, economic development, finance, business, and government.
In my role as moderator, I was fortunate to take matters forward with the following folks, all at the top of their game in driving nature considerations into government, finance and business decision-making:
Why It's Important: Our shared global vision of a healthy planet where people and nature thrive is dependent on the choices we make in designing the very foundation of our economies – our infrastructure. The infrastructure of the past has contributed significantly to the biodiversity degradation we see today. However, with technical ingenuity combined with visionary financial and business models and a deep understanding of how natural systems function, we can reshape the future of infrastructure development. This event highlighted the practical advances and complex challenges of mainstreaming biodiversity into this vast sector and explored ways to build the enabling environment for nature-positive infrastructure development.
If I had to summarize my key takeaways from each of these amazing speakers, it would be the following:
European Investment Bank
We need a better lens for the long term impacts and benefits of infrastructure that values nature. This will need to include more complete asset pricing and asset risk assessment and valuation that directly accounts for nature. It requires a new approach from the insurance sector, because nature is a climate solution (both resilience and mitigation) and projects that integrate it need this to be reflected in their project premiums. This in turn becomes a driver for carbon sequestration and nature restoration to be an integral part of infrastructure project delivery. New financial instruments will help to make this happen:
The shift here is important: right now, Multilateral Development Banks like the EIB engage in an infrastructure project and provide finance at the permitting stage. By this point it is too late for much creativity and integration of nature into the development process – we can’t break the business as usual paradigm, but, with these new financial instruments EIB can more closely influence and control the scope and brief.
Nepal case study – a government grappling with burgeoning infrastructure demand and the need to conserve and protect mega fauna and biodiversity hot spots
My key takeway here was that for the folks in the Nepal communities, development equals infrastructure. As we know, the Nepalese people are blessed with amazing wildlife and natural areas, most of which are in the path of joined up infrastructure plans. In the past, that would have always been spelled doom for nature. But the examples from Nepal showed the great lengths government are going to, in order to maintain and enhance wildlife continuity with multiple examples provided of wildlife passes for Elephant and other key species.
Jacobs
Attention was drawn to the need for an enhanced economic analysis and project appraisal process where the full benefits of nature positive infrastructure are integrated, which makes the case for initiatives like wildlife connectivity. IIJA is seen as a great enabler of US federal highways wildlife crossings, but the next step is utilizing landscape-level nature data to go beyond current project boundaries and integrate multiple infrastructure owner/operator estates for entire eco-region enhancement.
International Institute for sustainable development
A beautiful segway from the points above was taken up by IISD with their advanced set of tools and approaches for integrating nature and other co-benefits into the traditional Cost: Benefit Analysis approach for assessing the returns on major infrastructure projects. Insight here is the vital leads on how to avoid future costs: the SaVI tool is a boon. Examples of the approach include integrating health outcomes from nature positive infrastructure, which can have a big positive impact on future healthcare budgets.
African Development Bank
Stressed the need for large linear infrastructure programs to get the tools and the permitting process right in order to more effectively integrate nature. Emphasis on the need to go beyond ‘do no harm”. In this light, emerging economies will need more grant funding to allow implementation, linked with this is the necessity for better granularity of cost-effective nature data.
WBCSD / Arcadis
Emphasis here was about leveraging procurement and engagement with the supply chain as a focus for integrating nature in infrastructure development – recommend that major organisations choose at least one big supplier from their value chain and develop a deep engagement with them on biodiversity outcomes and KPIs. This can create a ripple effect in the market, making it the norm to consider nature in major infrastructure procurement.
Final Word.
Come on folks, let's continue to work together to ensure the successful delivery of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and forge a path to restoring the beauty and bounty of our extraordinary planet.