Market push for nature-based solutionsNew European project Invest4Nature to boost investments in nature-based solutions

17. Oktober 2022

15 European partners of the new EU-funded project Invest4Nature met on October 10-12 2022 for the project’s kick-off event in Graz. Over the course of 4 years, 15 partners will contribute to a better understanding of the economic and financial performance of nature-based solutions. The improved understanding is needed to promote upscaling, to attract investments in the measures and to serve as a basis for the development of a market to enable a broad deployment of nature-based solutions.

As a project partner, Steinbeis Europa Zentrum helps Invest4Nature to reach a bigger impact by coordinating the communication activities, disseminating the project results and knowledge to a specialized audience and transforming the project results to solutions ready for further use beyond the project period.

The world is experiencing a severe climate and biodiversity crisis. The EU’s strategy to tackle this crisis – the Green Deal - considers nature-based solutions as a key measure. Therefore, it supports projects that contribute its further development. The environmental, social and economic benefits of the solutions are manifold: from the mitigation and adaptation to climate change (including the reduction of urban heat island effects and flood mitigation) to the increased well-being for citizens. However, these benefits are not yet fully understood and there is currently no standard method to calculate the economic and financial benefits of such nature-based solutions e.g. in the reduction of climate risks which are important for financial stakeholders such as investors and insurances.

"There can be no investments without reliable data and concrete figures. We’re excited to fill this gap with Invest4Nature and the fruitful kick-off meeting here in Graz showed that we can create a powerful “meta-level boost” for the broad implementation of nature-based solutions.”
Andreas Türk, Joanneum Research, Coordinator of Invest4Nature

Invest4Nature will:

  • Create an evaluation framework of nature-based solutions to allows the valuation of risks reductions by NBS as well as sound cost-benefit analyses and the development of business models,
  • Provide evidence on the benefits NBS in in coastal, urban, rural and mountainous scenarios by evaluating 5 existing cases in Norway, Denmark, Poland, Austria and Portugal which will serve as Living Labs,
  • Develop a Decision Support System (DSS) and a communication toolbox for nature-based solutions to meet the needs of investors.

Invest4Nature (full name: Promoting investments in NBS and accelerating market uptake by gaining a better understanding of the economic performance of NBS, considering climate mitigation and risk reduction) combines the expertise of 15 organisations from 11 European countries, including universities, research organisations, NGOs, SMEs and municipalities.

For further information, visit the Invest4Nature twitter channel via @Invest4N, the LinkedIn channel via @Invest4Nature, and the official project website www.invest4nature.eu.

The Invest4Nature consortium consists of the following members:

  • JOANNEUM RESEARCH FORSCHUNGSGESELLSCHAFT MBH, AUSTRIA (COORDINATOR)
  • STEINBEIS EUROPA ZENTRUM (STEINBEIS 2I GMBH), GERMANY
  • NORSK INSTITUTT FOR VANNFORSKNING, NORWAY
  • HORIZON NUA INNOVATION, IRELAND
  • AARHUS UNIVERSITET, DENMARK
  • CLIMATE ALLIANCE - KLIMA-BUENDNIS – ALIANZA DEL CLIMA e.V., GERMANY
  • OPPLA EEIG, NETHERLANDS
  • ENGINEERING - INGEGNERIA INFORMATICA SPA, ITALY
  • EMAC EMPRESA MUNICIPAL DE AMBIENTE DE CASCAIS EM SA, PORTUGAL
  • MELOMYS ADVISORY, LATVIA
  • FONDAZIONE CENTRO EURO-MEDITERRANEO SUI CAMBIAMENTI CLIMATICI, ITALY
  • AARHUS KOMMUNE, DENMARK
  • KLIMABUNDNIS TIROL, AUSTRIA
  • MIASTO POZNAN, POLAND
  • U-SENTRIC BVBA, BELGIUM

Project Coordinator

Andreas Tuerk, Joanneum Research

andreas.tuerk@joanneum.at / ingrid.kaltenegger@joanneum.at

Main Press Contact

Regine Wehner, Steinbeis 2i GmbH

regine.wehner@steinbeis-europa.de

 

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