In March, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced A Force of Nature: Canada’s Strategy to Protect Nature. The government says the strategy will invest $3.8 billion in protecting nature, and aims to “restore critical habitats, ensure industrial strategies complement our conservation efforts, and mobilise new capital for nature.”
That was followed on April 27 by the $25-billion Canada Strong Fund, a sovereign wealth fund focused on “nation-building projects” such as new mines, ports and energy corridors. The two are presented as separate initiatives but they should be closely integrated: nature is vital infrastructure and Canada needs new tools to support it.
We are all familiar with the grey infrastructure we rely on every day: roads, bridges, sewers, pipelines, railways and so on. However, we don’t think as much about the critical value of nature. Without biodiversity and the “free” ecosystem services on which we depend, such as pollination, food, forests, soils and clean water, there is no foundation for our economy.
A critical asset
What we often miss is the direct value relationship between nature and other infrastructure. Consider an urban park, as we did in a recent studio project at the Ecological Design Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University. When designed with biodiversity and climate resilience in mind, the park’s green spaces slow and absorb storm water, provide a habitat for pollinating insects and birds, and reduce urban heat.
The park supplements the performance of grey infrastructure without the need for additional investment. Over time, the park creates a “nature premium,” adding value to every adjacent home and commercial property.
If we consider nature as infrastructure, it could be financed in the same way as traditional infrastructure investments: high upfront costs that deliver long-term returns. While grey infrastructure depreciates and requires significant maintenance over time, nature does the opposite, leading to returns that grow over the long term.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Herein lies the connection between the Force of Nature strategy and the Canada Strong Fund. Alone, each is insufficient to restore and protect Canada’s biodiversity, provide effective climate change adaptation and boost key infrastructure investments. But together, the two programs can amplify their reach.
By treating nature as a critical asset, Canada can invest the $3.8 billion it has committed to biodiversity protection in nature-based solutions (also called nature-positive infrastructure). These nature-based investments, from parks to protected areas, should be included in the portfolio of infrastructure to be developed through the $25-billion Canada Strong Fund.
My co-researcher Anastasia Mouragova Millin, CEO of the non-profit Ombrello Solutions, has shown that the additional upfront capital investment is marginal but the value added is significant.
In collaborative research with Jeremy Guth, founding director at ARC Solutions, our interdisciplinary partnership network has advanced new ways to develop wildlife crossings. We have shown, in our Safe Passages project, that we can connect and protect ecosystems with wildlife crossing systems across Canada’s highways. Investment in this infrastructure has provided cost-efficient and safer movement for wildlife and reduced wildlife-vehicle collisions by 90 per cent, while also enhancing biodiversity.
Capturing the nature premium
Pillar 3 of the Force of Nature strategy rethinks how Canada invests in nature. It calls for “using finance tools to fund conservation in a sustainable, long-term way.”
This means the government must consider investing in nature-based infrastructure in the same ways that successful businesses structure their financing and debt repayment (through bonds, for example). We must also broaden our definition of future returns on such investments to include the critical assets nature provides.
People might typically think of nature as a publicly-funded asset, meaning that governments pay to protect or restore it. My research team is asking: What if we recognize and capture the value of nature and then re-invest it back into nature?
(Waterfront Toronto/Vid Ingelevics/Ryan Walker)
If Canada invests in nature as infrastructure like wildlife crossings or nature parks, it can provide real financial value to investors. It is a win-win approach to infrastructure investment with cumulative benefits of biodiversity protection, recovery and climate resilience.
In urban areas, private assets such as real estate benefit from nature’s premium. Offices, residential homes and apartments, and retail venues become more attractive when near natural green spaces.
In addition, nature-based infrastructure reduces liabilities from insurance premiums to clean-up costs. For example, nature-based infrastructure can mitigate the risks of flood damage and reduce the occurrence or strength of heatwaves and ice storms.
The global nature deficit (the cost to stop biodiversity loss) is already at US$600 billion annually. We cannot rely solely on public funding to close that gap. To leverage the extraordinary commitment of $3.8 billion, the Canadian government needs to create new financial tools to attract global investment. If we want a prosperous, healthy and stable future, we need to invest in nature as infrastructure.
