Annex III: Accounting for Nature in Urban Planning - How Ecosystem Accounts can Help Scale Up Nature‑based Solutions for Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Cities

This annex responds to some of the key barriers identified to scaling up the use of the NbS – particularly the challenges of showing that nature in cities can be an ‘asset’ rather than a ‘cost’. It reviews how the application of urban Ecosystem Accounting (EA) can help decision-makers in cities scale up the use of NbS in the context of managing the wider natural environment. It explores how urban EA can help overcome barriers to greater use of NbS for sustainable and resilient cities and how cities can implement EA by: i) looking at how cities currently use urban EA and NbS; ii) summarising the ways that the multiple benefits of NbS could be captured and valued to change perceptions of nature in cities from ‘cost’ to ‘investment’ using EA; and iii) exploring how the policy and practice of EA and NbS at local and national levels could be aligned.