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Nature-based solutions can help overcome urban sustainability challenges by providing services, creating
benefits and holding value for different urban actors. However, the development of nature-based solutions is
hampered by a number of barriers that relate to the value proposition, value delivery and value capture of
NBS business models and sources of (public/private) finance to tap into. Value created from nature-based
solutions which provide marketable products that can be privately appropriated, such as urban agriculture,
can be more easily privately finance and delivered through business models than NBS such as urban forests
which deliver nature-based value with mostly public good characteristics (e.g. improved air quality, CO2
abatement). We find that the level of finance and business models needed for different types of NBS varies.
Policy makers can intervene at various administrative levels to encourage finance and business models for NBS
innovations, for example through changing accounting frameworks, adjusting procurement rules and
providing risk guarantees. The main challenge surrounding the scale up of urban NBS will be matching
commitment from heterogeneous urban constituents to different types of nature-based solutions through
appropriate finance and business models.
