Development and technical design of state-of-the-art Nature-based Solutions for 5 urban sites under development in the EU

The project technical assistance is funded under the Support Facility of the Natural Capital Finance Facility (NCFF), Ref : AA-011030-001. It is a financial instrument blending EIB funding with European Commission (EC) financing funded by the Programme for the Environment and Climate Action (LIFE programme). The overall objective of the NCFF is to provide a proof of concept demonstrating to the market, financiers and investors, the attractiveness of such projects and thereby develop a sustainable flow of capital from the private sector towards the financing of natural capital and achieving scale of such investments.

For the present project, the Fund management has been entrusted by the EIB to Ginkgo. Created in 2010 in partnership with Edmond de Rothschild Private Equity, Ginkgo has become a leading investment franchise dedicated to sustainable urban regeneration in Europe. The strategy of the franchise consists in acquiring a portfolio of well-located brownfield sites, remediating the land using innovative and environmentally respectful remediation approaches and redeveloping the sites into new inclusive and sustainable neighbourhoods.

The overall objective of the project is to remediate and redevelop selected sites in and around urban areas inside the EU. The redeveloped sites include commercial space and housing of which a certain share will be social housing units. The redeveloped areas take the local urban planning considerations into account and pursue an integrated approach with the objective of developing neighbourhoods that are resilient and offer a high quality of life for their future citizens.

The main focus of the project is on advising the Fund in the development of resilient neighbourhoods embedding nature-based solutions (NbS) and suggesting biophilic NbS design. The Service Provider (Egis) works alongside the Fund’s architect team and environment experts on a selected set of five projects located in the following cities: Amsterdam, Florence, Porto, and Paris (2 sites). NbS are integrated with the objective of strengthening the resilience to climate change impacts, to promote biodiversity and to maximise the quality of life of the new neighbourhoods. The practical design advice is based on an integrated approach that embeds NbS and where possible creates linkages with other green areas (biodiversity promoting green corridors). The design advice is based on in-depth climate risk and biodiversity assessments of the sites.

In addition to the support in developing and integrating NbS, Egis also develops a knowledge sharing package allowing the Fund to share best practices with different audiences (public authorities, municipalities, peers, final clients). Based on the 5 selected projects and the NbS implementation process within the general approach of Ginkgo towards brownfield urban redevelopment, this knowledge sharing package will serve as a best practice reference document in the sector and for less experienced developers.

The project is currently being finalized. The aim of the present paper is to present the methodological approach for the NbS selection, supported by case-studies on the five pilot sites.