EC Expert Publication on the Nature-Positive Economy Launched at EBNS 2025

The latest European Commission Expert Publication entitled “Policy Imperatives for a Resilient and Competitive Nature-Positive Economy” was launched on Friday, 24th October, at the European Business and Nature Summit 2025 in Helsinki, Finland. The publication was developed under NetworkNature’s NbS Task Force 3: Finance and Business Models (for NbS) in a Nature-Positive Economy and coordinated by the Invest4Nature project. 

The launch was part of a business and policy discussion on Rationale and Roadblocks for Business Transformation to Nature Positive, jointly led by Horizon Nua and Trinity College Dublin. The technical session was moderated by Director of Horizon Nua, and one of the lead authors of the EC expert publication, Dr Siobhan McQuaid. 

Speakers and panellists included Pavel Dostal, CEO of a nature-based enterprise, known as GreenVille; Claudia Pérez Casas, Environment and Energy Specialist at Sacyr, a large infrastructure company from Spain; Fleur Van Ooststroom Brummel, Policy Officer for  Biodiversity and Nature-based Solutions at the European Commission; and Maija Bergström, Project Manager (VALUE project) from The City of Helsinki Urban Environment Division. 

Image 1. (L-R) Siobhan McQuaid, Claudia Pérez Casas, Pavel Dostal, Maija Bergström and Fleur Van Ooststroom Brummel.

In a video message from James Morrison, Director of Healthy Planet, at the European Commission, Nature-based Solutions were described as “a cornerstone of the Nature-Positive Economy”. He also recognised the value of initiatives like the Connecting Nature Enterprise Platform (managed by Horizon Nua) as an example of “how EU Research and Innovation are already driving real world change - by matching demand and supply for nature-based solutions, by building global markets and by supporting nature-positive entrepreneurship.” 

A key message emerging from the publication was that despite the compelling rationale for business action towards nature-positive, there are many roadblocks still faced by business in terms of reporting complexity and policy inconsistency. Despite these challenges, Claudia Perez Casas of Sacyr warned against inaction: “Don’t wait for perfect data or regulation. Start now. Pilot, learn, and scale. Nature can’t wait.” 

Siobhan McQuaid presenting the five key messages for businesses from the EC Expert Publication.

Among the many highlights from the session was Pavel Dostal’s perspective of Nature-based Enterprises/SMEs and the challenges they face in the transition to nature-positive. Pavel indicated that resource constraints and lack of bottom-up demand for Nature-based Solutions can hinder SMEs transition to nature-positive. According to Pavel “if we mean the transition seriously, we should be ready to supply evidence that nature can actually make a compelling business case.”

Fleur Van Ooststroom Brummel also emphasised the importance of financing and capacity building for NbS, which the EC supports through, for example, the NetworkNature Business Forum, NetworkNature Hubs, and Green Assist advisory service, which supports investors and municipalities to invest in NbS. According to Fleur: 

“Currently the business-as-usual trajectory remains the cheapest option out there.  Public and private funding still flow towards nature-negative activities. The lack of coherent finance and policy signals remains a roadblock to nature-positive. Through Research & Innovation (EC), we are looking at how nature-positive can become the dominant economic paradigm.”

This year’s summit brought together close to 450 in-person participants, and nearly 2000 online participants, across two days. The EC expert publication is now available to download either as an executive summary or full report through the following link: https://networknature.eu/networknature/resource/policy-imperatives-competitive-and-resilient-nature-positive-economy