IUCN NL has years of proven track record advising businesses, financial institutions and governments on a field that increasingly shapes their future: protecting biodiversity, including putting Nature-based Solutions (NbS) to work. As an independent knowledge partner and part of the world’s largest conservation network, we help you turn ambition into a concrete, science-based plan you can act on and report against.

Nature. More than half of the global economy depends on it[1]World Economic Forum. Nature Risk Rising.. It has an unmistakable place on the balance sheet, a fact most organisations understand. It shapes their risks, their license to operate and their reputation with citizens, customers and investors. The harder question is what to do, when time and in-house knowledge are limited. IUCN NL helps you fill that gap. 

What we offer: six areas of expertise

1. Biodiversity and Nature-based Solutions strategy

We help you build biodiversity and Nature-based Solutions into your wider sustainability policy. This includes determining the main drivers of biodiversity loss related to your activities, mapping biodiversity risks, and formulating indicators to measure and report on progress. The emphasis is results-oriented: a strategy you can report against, not a statement of intent.

2. Practical Nature-based Solutions 

Want to build on solid, long-term Nature-based Solutions? We advise on which solutions fit your context, strategy and how existing solutions can be strengthened by using the appropriate criteria and KPIs.  

We can also co-develop design processes in which Nature-based Solutions play a central role and train your teams to apply them. All grounded in the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions[2]IUCN.org. Global Standards for Nature-based Solutions..

More on Nature-based Solutions: using the power of nature

3. Policy, standards and regulations

The legal landscape is dense and fast-moving, driven by frameworks such as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the EU Biodiversity Strategy and Nature Restoration Regulation, the EU Deforestation Regulation and Water Framework Directive.  

IUCN NL can give organisations ample support creating new policy or governance models, boosting nature. We also help businesses and governments find what applies to them and turn obligations into workable plans. Including the contribution public institutions must make to the Dutch National Restoration plan. 

4. Investing in nature

The value nature provides such as pollination, carbon storage and water, rarely shows up in financial decisions. Even though its loss carries real financial risk. We connect the worlds of finance and conservation: advising companies and public bodies on designing projects that protect and restore nature, and on how to make them financially viable.  

But there’s more, like Greening Finance: making sure we transform into a greener and more just financial system. Helping financials like banks and insurers improve their sustainable decision-making. Or working on business cases that prevent investing in harmful activities and incorporate natural risks and values.

More on funding nature conservation

5. Sustainable value chains and a lighter footprint

Dutch companies and financial institutions sit at the heart of international trade. Soy, palm oil, the raw materials behind the energy and protein transition, all produced and acquired through complex supply chains.  

We advise companies and governments on making those chains fairer and more sustainable, acting as a convener and advisor so parties can take joint steps based on shared goals.

6. Measuring, monitoring and reporting impact

Measuring helps you manage. We support organisations to select the best measurement method that suits the type of activities, assets, landscape, or purpose of the measurement. Whether it’s STAR, Biodiversity-Net Gain, or the WWF Risk Filter to name a few, we have the necessary experience with applicable methods and metrics for your organisation.  

These different forms of measures can also pose a challenge for governments, especially when they need to line up within specific policies, processes, or activities. How to create corporate governance for Netto Natuurwinst, for example. IUCN NL can give clarity in alignment with any method or measurement. 

How we work

These are the elements that define the way we advise: 

  • Independent and science-based. We answer to evidence, not to a commercial interest in your sector. 
  • Grounded in IUCN’s global toolkit[3]IUCN.org. Toolkit.. We draw on proven tools and standards like the Red List of Threatened Species, the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions, and the STAR metric. Standards the field relies on, several of which we helped build. 
  • Tailored to your starting point. Support ranges from a single workshop or knowledge session to a focused study or a full, multi-year strategy. 
  • A bridge between landscapes. We bring finance, government, science and civil society to the same table and help them move together. 
  • Quality you can rely on[4]EIK Certificering. ISO 9001.. IUCN NL works to a certified (ISO 9001) quality-management standard. 

Caspar Verwer van IUCN NL in de Weerribben-Wieden © Nadine Kliffen / IUCN NL

Biodiversity – the field we work in

Biodiversity, the variety of life that underpins the nexus of food, water, health and a stable climate, is in steep decline. That rapid, factual decline carries real cost for organisations that depend on the same landscapes.[5]IPBES. Business and Biodiversity Assessment Report.. We help you understand where you affect and rely on nature, set measurable targets, and act on the global and European commitment to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030.  

Nature-based Solutions

Nature-based Solutions, as part of our biodiversity work field, use natural processes to solve societal problems, such as restoring wetlands to curb climate change, rebuilding soil life to make farmland resilient. They are widely recognised as a route to the Sustainable Development Goals, the global climate and biodiversity goals and the EU Green Deal, but only deliver when designed well.  

We advise and train teams to apply them, based on the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions. 

Discover our proven track record

Put our advice to work for your organisation

Whether you need a single knowledge session, a focused study, or a full biodiversity and Nature-based Solutions strategy, we’ll help you find the right starting point.  

Tell us where your organisation stands, and we’ll think it through with you. 

Contact Verian Klarus, Senior Expert Nature Conservation

Verian Klarus IUCN NL
Verian Klarus
Senior Expert Nature Conservation

Read more about our work

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