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APE participated in the European Business & Nature Summit 2023 on “Harnessing nature’s potential: Exploring business adoption of nature-based solutions”

APE contributed to session 10 of the European Business & Nature Summit 2023 on “Harnessing nature’s potential: Exploring business adoption of nature-based solutions”, which was held in Milan on 11 and 12 October.

EU Business and nature summit

Aqua Publica Europea was invited to contribute to session 10 of the European Business & Nature Summit 2023 on “Harnessing nature’s potential: Exploring business adoption of nature-based solutions”, which was held in Milan on 11 and 12 October.

The session was the opportunity to learn more about the potential of nature-based solutions (NBS) to address many water-related issues and to discuss the conditions for a private sector’s contribution to the financing of NBS. 

As Aqua Publica Europea, we reiterated our persuasion that NBS can represent a valid alternative to traditional ‘grey solutions’ as discussed on occasion of a seminar that we organised some time ago.

Compared to grey solutions, NBS have indeed the potential to be more cost-effective, more resilient, and more environmentally friendly (including for a significant reduction of CO2 emissions). There remain three main obstacles to greater uptake of NBS by water operators:

  • Full integration of NBS-related methodologies in the ‘toolbox’ of water utilities.
  • Availability of robust metrics to assess the effectiveness (both in economic and environmental terms) of NBS compared to traditional solutions.
  • Above all, the establishment of conducive governance frameworks, as the realisation of NBS necessarily depends on the coordination of different stakeholders and different public administration’s departments.