Policy is a foundational mechanism for enabling, scaling, and sustaining Nature-based Solutions (NbS). Effective NbS policy moves beyond simple regulation to involve genuine collaboration and co-creation across governments, stakeholders, and citizens. This guide acts as your starting navigation point, directing you to the core frameworks and resources needed to develop robust, co-created, and integrated NbS policies.
A policy is considered a set of requirements designed to guide the behaviour of public authorities, businesses, and individuals toward a desired outcome. Policies can take many forms, including regulations, economic and market-based instruments, administrative practices, information tools, and voluntary cooperation or awareness-raising measures across all levels of governance. Policies can exist across varied scales from local to spanning nations, each context with its own challenges and opportunities. This guide will focus on policy as a regulatory instrument implemented by governing bodies of various scales. Source
The EU policy landscape related to Nature-based Solutions (NbS) has undergone incremental transformation, evolving from a collection of voluntary strategic ambitions into a cohesive system of binding governance and operational detail. The first EU-level policy instrument to explicitly adopt the term “Nature-based Solutions” was the 2014–2015 Work Programme of the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme. Before this introduction, the term ‘green infrastructure’ acted as the natural precursor.
As the regulatory framework has matured, driven by the landmark Nature Restoration Law and the European Green Deal, the focus has moved decisively toward accountability, evidenced by a marked rise in policies that explicitly mandate secured financing and science-based monitoring. The following section details how these frameworks are currently structured, from EU level to measurable national policy instruments.
Several major EU level policies collectively support the deployment of NbS.
Collectively, these policies form an expanding but still evolving governance system for mainstreaming NbS across Europe.
Policies implemented at national levels are informed by and in many cases lead from the foundation established by EU level policies. Given their nature, these policy instruments are more specific and aligned to particular contexts of action. The impact of national policies cannot be understated and their continued implementation and expansion should be supported.
A relevant tool to access national-level policies that involve NbS is the NetworkNature policy tracker, which has been active since 2020 and collects national-level policies that enable NbS implementation since 2016 across the globe. The most updated edition of the tracker contains 1546 Policies (508 Europe, 393 Asia, 296 Africa, 290 North America, 197 South America, 87 Oceania).
Policy progress in 2024-2025 as observed by the tracker:
Thematic policy trends:
You can explore the policies of the NbS tracker in detail here. Moreover, GeoIKP also hosts a policy repository which can be found here.
Landscape & Analysis
Sectoral / Thematic Policy Reports
Broader Nature-Positive Perspectives
The journey toward effective NbS-enabling policies is highly iterative and requires integrating different knowledge domains. To guide this process, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) Policy Cycle provides a structured, adaptable framework designed specifically for policy co-creation. This framework emphasises bringing diverse voices together at every stage, from problem identification to evaluation, to ensure policies are relevant, accepted, and effective.You can explore the JRC’s approach to collaborative policy here
General EU Policymaking Tools & Evidence
Policymakers can focus on many activities related to their context to support the sustainability and upscaling of NbS implementation. This may include:
1. Removing Obstacles
Clarifying environmental impacts, making hidden costs visible, and phasing out harmful subsidies and negative supply-chain practices.
2. Incentivising NbS
Value ecosystem services, ensuring fair benefit-sharing, and supporting practitioners with training, funding, and reduced risk.
3. Mobilising Finance
Estimating funding needs, improving access to capital, redirecting harmful finance flows, and using innovative financing models. See our financing guide for more.
4. Enabling Implementation
Integrating NbS into budgets and planning, protecting green/blue infrastructure, applying local knowledge, and investing in monitoring.
To support policymakers in taking these actions, the WWF Powering Nature: Creating the Conditions to Enable Nature-based Solutions report offers a practical framework. It provides clear policy pathways, real examples, and actionable guidance on how to embed NbS in governance, finance, and planning systems. You can read the report here.
The development of policies for NbS is a challenging task, but the urgent need to embed, centralise, and validate NbS as essential actions, for the health of our natural environments and as valuable social and financial investments, demands that we act decisively and collaboratively to integrate them into planning and decision-making processes.
Implementation, Enabling Mechanisms & Financing
