From Nature-based Solutions to Investable Practice - Invest4Nature best-practice booklet

If nature-based solutions (NbS) deliver clear environmental, social and economic benefits, what is preventing their wider uptake? This booklet explores the evidence, financing pathways, tools and real-world experiences needed to answer that question.

One of the key barriers lies in the gap between awareness and action: between recognising the value of NbS and integrating them into concrete investment and policy decisions. Invest4Nature was launched to address this gap. By strengthening the evidence base on the economic and financial performance of NbS, and by engaging stakeholders across public and private sectors, the project has focused on making NbS more credible, visible and actionable. Crucially, the work is grounded in reallife Living Labs across Europe where NbS cases are evaluated and solutions are tested.

This booklet brings together the key insights from this work. It offers a structured overview of research from Invest4Nature: how NbS functions within market ecosystems, the current state of financing and its limitations, the role of public actors and how private capital can be unlocked to enable implementations. Most importantly, it highlights lessons learned from local experiences and translates them into practical considerations for policymakers, cities, investors and practitioners.

As Europe advances towards climate resilience, the question is no longer whether NbS are relevant, but how they can be deployed at scale. We hope this booklet contributes to that transition, supporting informed choices on NbS and fostering the conditions for their wider uptake.

This work has been funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe grant 101061083 (Invest4Nature). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission and its European Research Executive Agency (REA) – hereinafter referred to as the granting authority. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.