This platform aims at connecting demand for nature-based solutions (public and private buyers) with innovative enterprises offering those solutions.
As part of the Connecting Nature, Horizon 2020 project, the Connecting Nature Enterprise Platform was set up in October 2020.
The European Commission defines nature-based solutions as
“Solutions that are inspired and supported by nature, which are cost-effective, simultaneously provide environmental, social and economic benefits and help build resilience. Such solutions bring more, and more diverse, nature and natural features and processes into cities, landscapes and seascapes, through locally adapted, resource-efficient and systemic interventions.”
Examples of such solutions range from living roofs and walls, sustainable drainage systems, natural wastewater treatments, constructed wetlands. Following research, their benefits for citizens and the environment have been demonstrated but their economic potential is still to be better understood at a larger scale.
The Connecting Nature Enterprise Platform wants therefore to facilitate the match between supply and demands to support this emerging sector.
Nature-based enterprises (NBEs) are defined as enterprises, engaged in economic activity, that use nature sustainably as a core element of their product/service offering for the planning, delivery and/or stewardship of nature-based solutions. Nature-based enterprises differ from nature-based organisations who deliver nature-based products and services but not as a core economic activity e.g. parks department, conservation charity etc.
Various actors looking for solutions can post their challenges and browse the list of suppliers. Policy-makers can connect with the practitioners, enterprises with financing and other opportunities, and the innovators with those seeking inspiration.
