Nature loss is emerging as a systemic economic and financial risk, undermining the Ecosystem Services (ES) that underpin productivity, resilience, and human well-being. Despite growing policy ambition, particularly under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and EU Nature Restoration Law, current financial and economic systems continue to undervalue nature, resulting in underinvestment in nature-based solutions (NbS).

 

This report addresses a central challenge of how to translate the broad societal value of NbS into actionable financial logic that can mobilize investment at scale. Commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature (LVVN), this study examines how Ecosystem Service Valuation (ESV) can support the scaling of finance for NbS. It demonstrates that ESV is a strategic tool to clarify value creation, reveal the distribution of costs and benefits across stakeholders, and inform the design of financial mechanisms and Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs).

 

The analysis combines literature review, expert interviews, and two in-depth case studies: a landscape-scale reforestation initiative in the United Kingdom (Avon Needs Trees) and a regenerative agriculture transition in Spain (El Roble Farm). Across both cases, the findings show that NbS generate substantial increases in Total Economic Value (TEV), primarily driven by regulating and cultural ES such as climate regulation, water management, biodiversity, and recreation.

 

These benefits are often widely distributed across society and accrue over long time horizons, while costs remain concentrated among a limited number of actors. This structural mismatch between value creation and financial capture explains why NbS remain underfinanced despite their strong societal returns. Conventional appraisal frameworks prioritize short-term, monetized cash flows and systematically underrepresent non-market benefits, creating a bias in favor of grey infrastructure alternatives. ESV addresses this gap by making the full bundle of ES visible and comparable, enabling more informed and equitable decision-making.

 

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