Model for decision support

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Rooftop Garden Maandag Rotterdam Blaak. Design and realisation: Boekel Tuin en Landschap

In order to help municipalities and water boards to determine their policy mix to promote climate adaptation on private land, the working group decision support is developing a framework.

There are many policy tools that municipalities and water boards can use to promote climate adaptation on private land. And there are even more digital tools that are meant to facilitate the choice between the different policy tools. The working group decision support is therefore developing an overarching framework that will bring together these tools in a structured way.

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Launch Finance for Biodiversity Pledge

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On September 25 at 15:00 CEST, 26 financial institutions will launch their Finance for Biodiversity Pledge during the United Nations Nature for Life Hub. Don’t miss it! In the Pledge, the participating banks, investors and other financial institutions will commit to start working for biodiversity. They will also call upon other financial institutions and heads of state to do the same, so that together we can help reverse global biodiversity loss.

Behind the scenes at NextGreen, we are working hard together with Anita de Horde to prepare for this historic event. The new website is now online and a film maker is busy creating videos in which the CEOs of these institutions make their statements for the launch.

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NextGreen endorses the Green Recovery Statement

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Green Recovery Statement NextGreen

Together with more than 250 businesses, NextGreen has endorsed the Green Recovery Statement, which was launched last Friday. The Dutch signatories pledged their support for making sustainability the cornerstone of COVID-19 recovery plans. Led by Jan Peter Balkenende, chairman of the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition (DSGC), and former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, the statement was presented to Minister Sigrid Kaag on June 19th, also the day on which the European Council discussed the COVID-19 recovery plan.

NextGreen signed the Green Recovery Statement, stating:

“The time has come to accelerate transformative change jointly. Connecting business and governments, finance and NGOs, to align with the SDGs. We need to collaborate and focus together on transforming key economic processes, like procurement, pricing, taxing and advertisement regulation, and building resilience for the next crisis.”

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Kick-off: Climate Adaptation Assessment in the Finance Sector

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Kick-off: Climate Adaptation Assessment in the Finance Sector

Over the next few months, NextGreen – commissioned by ‘Climate-Proof Together’ – will be working on an inventory of ongoing initiatives in the field of climate risks and climate resilience in the financial sector. The aim is to create a clear overview of current developments and to identify the next steps that financial institutions can take in conjunction with real estate developers, property owners and companies in order to adapt their policy and projects to integrate climate resilience.

The development of a ‘common language’ is important in the interaction between financial institutions and municipalities and water boards. It will make their dialogue on climate-proof design more effective for developers, property owners and companies, and it will provide a quicker insight into joint solutions.

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National Rooftop Plan – Online Kick-Off and Working Sessions

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May 14th 2020: Online kick-off with over 50 partners and board transfer of Green Deal Green Roofs to National Roof Plan

Online kick-off and New Board Members

Together with more than 50 partners, we attended the online launch event for the National Rooftop Plan on May 14th. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, no physical meeting was possible, but almost all the partners were able to attend the online kick-off. The action plan for the National Rooftop Plan 2020-2024 (Nationaal Daken Plan – NDP in Dutch) was presented by the new board of the NDP. They outlined the four focus points of the NDP partners for greening the rooftops of the Netherlands while at the same time working towards other sustainability goals, such as cooling, insulation, water collection (during peak rainfall), energy production, increase in biodiversity, and extra green user space in an increasingly crowded city. Because your roof can be so much more than ‘just a roof over your head’!

Focus points of the NDP

In the next few years, the 56 partners of the National Rooftop Plan will work together to promote multifunctional roofs. They will work in various working groups on the NDP’s four focus points:

  • Focus point 1. Broadening the mindset:
    Goal: To raise awareness of the multifunctional possibilities of flat roofs.
  • Focus point 2. Embedding in policy: regional and local (and national)
    Goal: Municipalities, water boards and provinces embed multifunctional roofs in their policy; to transform bottlenecks into opportunities in national policy as effectively as possible.
  • Focus point 3: Stimulating Financing:
    Goal: Rooftop owners, decision-makers and other stakeholders use stimulating financing models to finance multifunctional roofs.
  • Focus point 4: Skilled professionals
    Goal: An increasing number of trained professionals who can and want to contribute to realizing multifunctional roofs.
Getting started with the focus points and working groups

On May 28th, the NDP partners met online again, this time in smaller groups to discuss the different focus points. Together, they came up with concrete objectives and discussed the desired products for each focus point. In addition, the partners indicated how they would contribute to these products and to the action that is needed. The inspiration and synergy during these online working sessions was very promising for the future of the rooftop landscape in the Netherlands!

NextGreen carries out the process management of the National Rooftop Plan together with the Mediation consultancy Stroom and Onderstroom (Carleen Mesters). We are looking forward to supporting the NDP partners as they continue to work on the focus points. With a clear focus on the ultimate goal: more multifunctional roofs in the Netherlands with a positive impact on the climate, sustainable energy, biodiversity and health!

For more information about this project and an overview of the partners and the possibility of joining this project: see project page National Rooftop Plan.

Balancing the UN’S SDGs for the environmental vision

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How can we strike the right balance between the many demands on scarce space for living, energy production, health and nature? And how can we do this within a municipality’s environmental vision? The implementation of the Dutch Environment and Planning Act requires municipalities to view the physical environment from an integrated perspective and to describe how the related social policies mesh together. At the request of the Association of Dutch Municipalities (VNG), NextGreen facilitated working sessions with four municipalities in order to co-create a framework for striking the right balance, based on their practical experiences and using the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a compass.

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Three New Pilots on Financial Incentives Alliance to Strengthen Collaboration

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Alliantie financiële prikkels vergroenen belastingen subsidies

Tile collection services, communication and handling trade-offs to achieve a good policy mix are central to the three new pilots involving financial incentives for climate adaptation. The partners are therefore building on the work of the Financial Incentives Alliance for Climate Adaptation.

Citizens and businesses can take measures to make their own environment more climate-proof. For example, through the creation of a green roof or a rainwater reuse system. But what is the best way to encourage citizens and businesses to actually take these steps?

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Online Collaboration for Impact: Our Tips

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Recent months have brought challenges that most of us could never have imagined, but fortunately, NextGreen’s clients can continue to work as usual with the joint sustainable transitions that we are facilitating online. Especially now, it is important that we, as government bodies, companies and financial institutions, work together on a truly inclusive society and a sustainable economy that supports this.

Now that we can no longer brainstorm face to face, we were quick to try out various online working methods. We now feel at home in any combination of Teams, Zoom, Skype, online workshops, webinars, break-out sessions, polls, chats – of course supplemented with e-mail and telephone. We adapt to the tools that our clients and partners prefer to work with, and we are discovering some great new online working methods.

We would like to share a number of online experiences from the processes that we have been facilitating:

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Webinars on ‘Science-Based Targets for Biodiversity’

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Leading companies, financial institutions and scientists have immersed themselves in developing Science-Based Targets for Biodiversity through a series of webinars. At the EU Business & Nature Summit in 2019, participants in the EU Finance and Biodiversity Community decided to further collaborate on the conservation and restoration of biodiversity and nature through their financing and investment activities. At the end of March, the plan was to meet business frontrunners and scientists to discuss ‘Science-Based Targets (SBT) for biodiversity’.

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Productive Dialogue on City Deal for Climate Adaptation

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During the City Deal meeting on February 13th, participants in the City Deal Climate Adaptation had a productive dialogue with a number of key players in the real estate sector and infrastructure & energy networks. Both municipalities and other sectors perform stress tests for climate adaptation, but they do not usually speak to each other. They face the same risks of infrastructure failure, damages and health issues due to increased flooding, heat and drought in urban and rural areas. The participants explored solutions and identified a number of actions around various bottlenecks at the local and national level. NextGreen facilitated this dialogue together with the coordinators of the City Deal.

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