The Environmental Industries Commission(EIC), part of the Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE Group), has today launched Delivering Nature Infrastructure: A Three-Point Plan - a practical, industry-backed roadmap for ensuring that nature-based solutions are treated with the same seriousness, and the same policy weight, as the roads, railways and flood defences we already depend on.

The three points are simple: recognise nature as infrastructure, join up government to deliver it and evidence its economic value.

Milda Manomaityte, CEO of ACE Group, said: “The engineering and infrastructure sector has always understood that the best solutions work with nature, not against it. What’s needed now is the policy frameworks, investment signals and government coordination that reflect nature's true value.

“Nature already does an enormous amount of work for communities across the UK: absorbing flood water; cooling urban areas, protecting coastlines and locking in carbon. Yet the systems to measure, coordinate, and value nature's contribution remain underdeveloped. Our three point plan sets out to change that.”

Philippa Spence, Managing Director, Environment and Health at Ramboll, said: “The case for nature-based infrastructure has never been stronger, economically, environmentally and socially. What's been missing is the framework to embed it properly into planning and decision-making across government. Working with ACE and EIC on this plan, I'm confident we now have the start of something practical and deliverable.”

Nature-based solutions already deliver climate resilience, biodiversity gain, carbon sequestration and improved public health, frequently at lower whole-life cost than engineered alternatives. Yet they remain outside mainstream infrastructure planning, without the valuation frameworks, cross-government coordination, or delivery structures that engineered assets use.

With the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority now operational the moment is right to make the case clearly: nature is not a green add-on, it is one of our most cost-effective delivery mechanisms, and policy must reflect that.

Click here to read more about the three-point plan.

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