3 reasons the private sector should invest in nature-based solutions to become more climate resilient

By Elisa Jiménez Alonso

In the past few years, ‘nature-based solutions’ has emerged as a new umbrella term for measures “inspired and supported by nature”. Nature-based solutions cover a range of methods that are tried and tested, such as ecosystem services, green-blue infrastructure, ecosystem-based adaptation, and more. This new term provides a new category of sustainable practices that utilize the natural world, which can be used by policy and decision makers to tackle many societal issues, such as climate change.

The recently released special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has put the urgency of immediate and effective climate action front and center once again. Not only is a swift reduction of greenhouse gas emissions extremely important, but, with the amount of warming that has already happened, climate change adaptation is also top of the priority list.

Climate change presents many challenges to the private sector, in particular for companies whose products or services are dependent on natural resource or have assets that are exposed to the elements. Companies will need to consider how to protect their assets from damages caused by extreme weather events, how to maintain services in the face of a changing climate, and how to maintain access to increasingly scarce natural resources. Not planning for climate change impacts can result in service failures with severe economic or reputational losses and cascading impacts to other sectors.

So, how can nature-based solutions help companies deal with climate and climate-related risks and why should the private sector invest in them? Here are three reasons to begin with:

1. Nature-based solutions often take advantage of existing natural resources that regenerate themselves, consuming less energy and remaining unaffected by power loss as opposed to many gray infrastructure solutions. An example of this could be water treatment of industrial wastewater through wetlands rather than a wastewater treatment facility .
2. Many nature-based solutions are self-sustaining and don’t lose performance capacity over time. Depending on the solution it might even improve. Gray infrastructure solutions lose value over time and have a finite life expectancy after which they need to be replaced or decommissioned. This could be, for example, restoring or establishing oyster reefs to break wave energy and reduce coastal erosion instead of building artificial wave breakers.
3. Nature-based solutions have many co-benefits that can range from mere aesthetics to biodiversity conservation, decreasing water runoff and thus flood risk, and having a beneficial impact on human health. These co-benefits can significantly improve the reputation of private companies. Take for example a company that installs rainwater harvesting features in the form of vegetation and underground water storage to use the harvested water in bathrooms on their premises, thus reducing its impact on the local water supply, providing a pleasant green environment to its employees, and having a positive impact on local biodiversity.

In order to effectively make the business case for nature-based solutions and encourage the private sector to increase its investment in them, the Inter-American Development Bank, UN Environment, Acclimatise, and UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre are working on a project that will identify the barriers and enablers to private sector uptake of nature-based solutions, specifically in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Despite the potential benefits and vast applications of nature-based solutions, few examples of private sector use in Latin America and the Caribbean have been profiled. Through this project, we seek to identify examples of implementation, the barriers and enablers to uptake by the private sector and what steps could be taken to increase the consideration and use of nature-based solutions to build infrastructure resilience.

If you know of any good examples in the region, please fill in the survey and tell us about them!