Putting Equity at the Heart of Nature-Based Solutions
Explore how equitable principles are moving from an afterthought to a crucial component in nature-based solutions (NbS) and uncover how bespoke nature insurance solutions are enabling this fundamental shift.
What are Equitable Nature-Based Solutions?
As highlighted in the NATURANCE Talks Podcast, participatory and distributional equity are a growing topic in the field of Nature-Based Solutions (NbS).
Equity in NbS means designing and implementing climate and nature projects so that benefits, burdens, risks and decision-making power are shared fairly, and ideally in a net-positive manner. Crucially, it ensures the rights and knowledge of affected people are respected. It focuses on, for example, who has a meaningful say in decisions, who bears most of the risk if a project underperforms or fails, and whether those most affected have real opportunities to participate, avoid harm and ultimately benefit from the project.
Real-world frameworks are being put in place to support these principles from an assurance perspective, such as the BSI Flex 705 V1.0 Nature Markets Community Engagement and Benefits, which “provides practical, proportionate, good practice for suppliers of nature projects on how to engage and deliver benefits for local communities”. Much more needs to be done at a global scale however, particularly in areas where exploitation of marginal, high risk, or minority communities is particularly prevalent.
Shifting Focus
For many years, NbS were promoted as “apolitical win-wins” for climate and biodiversity, with social justice concerns often overlooked. As NbS are mainstreamed into climate, nature and investment policy, researchers argue that justice and equity must be built in from the start, not added later as co-benefits. This is especially important now that large inflows and outflows of private capital are recognised as a core requirement for scaling the NbS market. Reslience starts at a local level and this should be reflected.
Equity Lens on Insurance
As part of the NATURANCE project that GaiaSicura contributed to, the Grantham Research Institute and the Munich Climate Insurance Initiative applied this broader equity lens to how insurance is used alongside NbS. Their work examined who is protected by insurance arrangements, who bears which risks and costs over time, and whose interests are reflected when insurance is built into NbS finance and delivery.
Their analysis revealed that project developers and local actors often carry disproportionate liabilities and implementation risks, while a larger share of the financial and resilience benefits flows to investors, credit buyers, external downstream entities or other distant beneficiaries.
Current insurance policies in the NbS space tend to focus on transactions, such as upfront capital or offtake agreements, primarily protecting delivery entities and investors, without appropriately considering the impacts of financial or physical loss on the ground.
Rebalancing Risks and Liabilities
In GaiaSicura’s NATURANCE article, we outline how bespoke nature insurance solutions turn these uncertain and potentially open-ended liabilities into defined risks. These risks can then be absorbed by insurance markets, rather than sitting with project developers or local actors.
As the first specialist insurance broker dedicated solely to nature, we work with regeneration projects, and their stakeholders, to make risk allocation more explicit and balanced. Our bespoke risk-transfer solutions for nature finance and natural capital projects cover not only the transactions but also the impacts to the sites themselves, creating genuinely equitable nature insurance outcomes for all parties involved.
Embedding Equity in NbS
For those operating in nature regeneration, NbS equity should be a core consideration when assessing financial partnerships. Where equity is lacking they should consider how risk-transfer mechanisms can provide practical infrastructure to deliver real and fair protection.
For actors investing in nature, engaging with NbS equity also helps them stay ahead of rising expectations that projects must be nature-positive, climate-resilient, and demonstrably just for all in how they manage risk and reward.
By structuring risk transfer for NbS that works for every stakeholder from the outset, a specialist insurance broker like GaiaSicura can help deliver truly investable, nature-positive and socially just outcomes. This allows insurance to act as a core enabler of fairer NbS financial risk transfer, rather than an afterthought.
by Hannah Floor - Founder’s Assistant