How to deliver natural capital and ecosystem benefits for transport infrastructure

Safety, cost, capacity and reliability are permanent priorities for transport infrastructure managers. The need for innovation, for new and better ways to ensure that transport infrastructure delivers the services required by society, in a sustainable way, has never been greater.

There is increasing weight of evidence that natural capital and ecosystem services can provide such innovation, and deliver integrated, transformative benefits for transport infrastructure managers.

But there appears little consensus and impetus to implement such solutions. How do we ensure that the importance of green infrastructure, as a driver of economic, social and environmental transformation, at national, regional and local levels, is fully recognised and the services it provides placed at the heart of our transport plans and priorities?

A strategic plan is essential and might include:

1. Developing a much more compelling narrative about how, when and why ecosystem services should be delivered for transport infrastructure. A lack of consensus exists across the strata of transport infrastructure management - from individual scheme level through to the level of GB plc. Policy makers need to sell the significant benefits that ecosystem services bring to transport infrastructure programmes and projects.
2. Establishing a vision. Transport infrastructure leaders and shapers need to work to integrate ecosystem services with wider transport programme and policy objectives, at local and national levels, across different infrastructure providers. The lack of a national vision and joined-up thinking, on how ecosystem services can provide multiple benefits to multiple parts of the transport infrastructure, means the co-ordinating effort and investment required is a turn-off for decsion-makers, when viewed in isolation. Green infrastructure is not being considered as a solution for many important infrastructure management challenges where it has the potential to deliver hugely valuable safety, economic, social and environmental benefits.
3. Incentivise better working together. The current paradigm for transport infrastructure delivery does not incentivise the infrastructure management community to analyse, communicate and collaborate in order to deliver common-good ecosystem services benefits. Better working between infrastructure managers, government, environmental agencies, local authorities, delivery partners and their stakeholders is crucial to the successful delivery of ecosystem services.
4. A step-up in ecosystems services thought (and actual) leadership. While a number of organisations and industry groups are starting to look at the benefits that natural capital can bring to infrastructure management, an ‘ecosystems services for transport infrastructure’ body should power-up and have a mandate to identify priorities for research, to assess services and produce guidelines, to develop methods for benefits realisation, verification and reporting, to enable and ensure the use of the latest scientific evidence and technical information, to develop pilot schemes and share outputs of case studies, and to facilitate a wide range of stakeholder engagement and input.
5. Address limitations in ecosystem services knowledge, skills and education; without training and experience transport infrastructure managers will be unable to respond to and adapt to the emerging policy area. There is only a relatively small pool of people in the industry with experience of ecosystem services, the need is to rapidly develop and enhance levels of understanding and experience of transport infrastructure managers. 

There are multiple and wide-ranging benefits to be gained from integrating natural capital and ecosystem services into a vision for GB transport infrastructure. However, to fully realise these benefits, we need to have a strategy and delivery plan and to put in place quickly some enablers.

Views in this article represent the author’s personal opinions only.