The GrowGreen Factsheet proposes a series of steps to effectively plan the financing of NbS Strategies in cities. The process starts by clearly identifying the scale of costs associated with the different aspects of a city’s NbS strategy, followed by an assessment of any avoided costs resulting from the implementation of the strategy, identifying any financing gaps, and finally identifying policy and financing instruments to address those gaps.
The challenge of financing is a widely recognised barrier to the increased implementation of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in cities. The ambition to upscale the use of NbS is understood to be associated
with higher costs of establishment and maintenance, in comparison to traditional approaches. As this
investment is usually assumed to be borne by the city budget, this can result in lower ambition for
developing NbS strategies.
