Climate-resilient Netherlands: The NAS as a compass for collaboration and investments

The Netherlands faces significant challenges due to the impacts of climate change, such as heatwaves, extreme rainfall, and storms. To keep the country resilient in the face of these changes, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management is working on a new National Climate Adaptation Strategy (NAS), set to be released in 2026. NextGreen, commissioned by the ministry, provided advice on the importance and potential role of the financial sector. This was done in consultation with policymakers, financial institutions, and their industry associations.

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New paper: Business Models and Investments for Nature

There has been a growing recognition of the potential of investments for nature, such as nature-based solutions (NbS), to address environmental challenges while providing multiple socio-economic benefits. While the flow of finance towards NbS is increasing, they remain severely underfunded, and the absence of consistent and monetisable revenue streams remains a key barrier for scaling up private finance towards NbS. Privately funded nature investments have strong growth potential. However, they require public finance support to de-risk investments and improved policy incentives and tax benefits to scale.

This paper, developed by finance sector members of the EU Business & Biodiversity (B&B) Platform, aims to foster a more sustainable relationship between resilient ecosystems and business activities. It also highlights six existing business cases that contribute to nature positive outcomes. These examples are identified according to high-opportunity sectors, considering materiality and impact of investment, such as in forestry, regenerative agriculture and urban ecosystems.

The paper was presented during our webinar series on COP16, which focused on private sector contributions to resource mobilization. The event was organized jointly by UNEP FI, the EU Business and Biodiversity Platform, PRI, and the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation. It was also featured at an in-person Positive Impact & Innovations event held on October 30th at the Finance and Biodiversity Pavilion in the Blue Zone at COP16 in Cali, Colombia. The discussion centered around GBF Goal D and targets 14, 15, 18, and 19.

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Webinar financing climate adaptation for HHNK

On Thursday 31 March, NextGreen will facilitate a webinar for the ‘Samen Blauwgroen’ network to discuss the question of ‘How to fund climate adaptation?’. An in-depth follow-up workshop for municipalities and others interested will follow on 9 May.

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Biodiversity brochure for Wienerberger

Wienerberger – producer of bricks, roof tiles, and pipe systems – has committed to drawing up a biodiversity action plan for all its 200 production locations by the end of 2023. The company asked NextGreen to help it communicate this commitment externally.

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Toolbox for funding climate adaptation

A new online toolbox created by the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations shows how climate adaptation can be funded. NextGreen contributed to the information sheets about finance options and constructions and combining policy goals.

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Financial tools workshop

On 14 October, the Green Circle ‘Green Healthy City’ partnership was launched. Its mission: to radically green some of the Netherlands’ largest cities. NextGreen facilitated a workshop about the financial tools that can be used for this.

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Amundi speaks at COP15

During the COP15 Biodiversity Summit, Jean-Jacques Barbéris of Amundi spoke on behalf of the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation at the high-level plenary on 13 October. He invited the Global Biodiversity Framework to reflect the role of financial institutions. and to include appropriate regulatory measures.

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Engagement with companies

At a series of four virtual workshops on biodiversity ‘Engagement with companies’, members of the Finance@Biodiversity Community have been sharing experiences. The last workshop, held on 4 October, highlighted best practices by leading companies.

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Finance and biodiversity policy

The webinar on 28 September covered both EU- and UN-level policy developments on finance and biodiversity with guest speakers from the Convention on Biological Diversity, the EC DG FISMA and EFRAG.

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Lunch-talk finance and climate adaptation

The first online ‘lunch-talk’ on climate adaptation, which brought together financial institutions and governments, took place on 13 September. We discussed the practice behind the visual story: ‘Making the Netherlands more climate robust – what role do financial institutions play?’

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