Let Nature Work - Enabling nature-based solutions through the diversity of ecosystem services

While Europe is in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis and most people are working from home, it did not stop a group of entrepreneurs to plan and prepare for their future activities when the situation settles. Dutch Sino Business Promotions together with Nautilus Eco-Solutions and Hanging Water Tank recently initiated the European Green Cities Development Foundation (https://www.eugreencities.org), which is a platform that aims at sharing knowledge, promoting best practices, facilitating researches and knowledge exchanges, and collaborating with partners to provide design and solutions that contribute to sustainable urban development. The basis of the foundation is that Nature-based solutions (NbS) can play an important role in relieving pressures on the environment that urban development causes. The concept of NbS is based on the natural processes of the ecosystem, which is dynamic and adaptive to the surrounding environment and is defined as “actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits” by IUCN.

 This foundation is a continuation and spin-off of a 3-year program of the Dutch Enterprise Agency (RVO) that supported a consortium of companies and knowledge institutes providing integrated sustainable solutions for urban challenges such as flood risk, environmental governance and spatial development. This program was specifically targeted at the Chinese market, but the solutions are applicable worldwide. Therefore, these entrepreneurs joined forces again to launch this new initiative to further dedicate their experiences and knowledge to the development of future green cities. The European Green Cities Development Foundation is established to help solve these urban challenges with Nature-based Solutions, by offering expert trainings, consultancy, networking events, knowledge sharing platform, and facilitating research for enhancing the resilience of future cities around the world.