Nature-based Solutions
to Climate Change

Nature-based solutions (NbS) are solutions to societal challenges that involve working with nature to deliver benefits for people and biodiversity. They include the protection, restoration or management of natural and semi-natural ecosystems; the sustainable management of productive land and seascapes; or the creation of novel ecosystems such as urban ‘green infrastructure.’ Well-designed NbS can contribute to tackling climate change and biodiversity loss, whilst supporting many other sustainable development goals, but poorly designed schemes can have adverse impacts. Here we present four guidelines for delivering successful, sustainable NbS with long term benefits for people and nature.

 
 
01 NbS are not a substitute for the rapid phase-out of fossil fuels and must not delay urgent action to decarbonize our economies

NbS play a vitally important role in helping to mitigate climate change this century,  but their contribution is relatively small compared to what can be achieved by the rapid phase-out of fossil fuel use. Furthermore, unless we drastically reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, global heating will adversely affect the carbon balance of many ecosystems, turning them from net sinks to net sources of GHGs.

rapid phase-out of fossil fuels
 
 
02 NbS involve the protection, restoration or management of a wide range of natural and semi‐natural ecosystems; the sustainable management of aquatic systems and working lands; or the creation of novel ecosystems in and around cities or across the wider landscape

All ecosystem types hold opportunities for NbS to enhance provision of ecosystem services to people. Management at the landscape scale, accounting for and utilizing interactions between ecosystems, can maximize long term benefits. It is especially urgent to prevent inappropriate tree planting on naturally open ecosystems such as grasslands, savannahs and peatlands, or in areas with native forests. NbS must be valued in terms of the multiple benefits to people, rather than overly simplistic metrics such as numbers of trees planted.

all ecosystems
 
 
03 NbS are designed, implemented, managed and monitored by or in partnership with Indigenous peoples and local communities through a process that fully respects and champions local rights and knowledge, and generates local benefits

NbS are explicitly designed to provide a range of benefits to local people, including supporting livelihoods, improving health, and reducing vulnerability to climate change. They are designed to take the needs of different sectors of society into account, especially those of marginalized groups such as women, and benefits are assessedensured through monitoring and improved through adaptive management.

with, by and for people
 
 
04 NbS support or enhance biodiversity, that is, the diversity of life from the level of the gene to the level of the ecosystem

Biodiversity underpins the societal benefits derived from NbS by boosting the delivery of many ecosystem services in the short term, reducing trade-offs among services (e.g. between carbon storage and water supply), and supporting the health and resilience of ecosystems, thus increasing their capacity to deliver benefits in the long term. To sustain ecosystem health, other location-specific ecological aspects must also be considered, such as ecosystem connectivity. Therefore, successful, sustainable NbS are explicitly designed to provide measurable benefits for biodiversity and ecosystem health, and these benefits are ensured through monitoring and adaptive management.

underpinned by biodiversity
 

Signatories

If you would like to become a signatory please see below


Nature-based Solutions Initiative
University of Oxford
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
International Institute for Environment and Development
Zoological Society of London
Fauna & Flora International
Environmental Change Institute
University of Oxford
World Vision UK
Naturvation
University of Durham
Department of Zoology
University of Oxford
Smith School for Enterprise and Environment
University
Wildlife Conservation Society
UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
Capitals Coalition
Environmental Modelling Group
University of Aberdeen
Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management

About

These guidelines were originally developed in February 2020 by a consortium of 20 UK-based organisations, as a letter to the President of CoP26, Alok Sharma, to encourage adoption of the guidelines by other Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

In May 2020 the guidelines were adopted by the Together With Nature campaign, a call to corporate leaders to commit to four principles for investing in nature-based solutions. For a detailed explanation of why these guidelines are needed, with full references, see the open-access peer-reviewed article “Getting the message right on nature-based solutions for climate change”. The guidelines are designed to inform the planning, implementation and evaluation of NbS projects; in order to meet the guidelines, practitioners should set goals and quantitative targets relating to each guideline, monitor progress towards these targets using comprehensive metrics, and use adaptive management to improve outcomes. The guidelines are intended to be complementary to the more detailed IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions.

The wording of the Guidelines were improved in February 2021. As public and policy interest in NbS is growing rapidly, we plan to promote the adoption of these guidelines widely in the run-up to CoP26 and beyond, and we are now inviting new signatories from anywhere in the world.

Become a signatory

If you would like to add your organisation as a signatory to this letter please contact:

Nathalie Seddon | nathalie.seddon@zoo.ox.ac.uk
Director, Nature-based Solutions Initiative