Since the first industrial revolution, and even more since the advent of the Digital Transformation (DT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), the incessant sequence of technologies developed by humans has triggered a disruptive phenomenon that is radically changing the existing social and economic systems. It is, as author Thomas Siebel put it, an “evolutionary punctuation” that could be “intimately linked with the widespread death of species (…) Evolutionary punctuations are responsible for the cyclic nature of species: inception, diversification, extinction, repeat.” In the past 500 million years, there have been five global mass extinction events that left only a minority of species surviving. The voids in the ecosystem were then filled by massive speciation of the survivors (for example, the elimination of the dinosaurs made possible the reign of mammals). Most scientists today argue that disruptive punctuations are on the rise, and the periods of stasis in between punctuations are fading. 

Over the last decade, the world has had to acknowledge that the self-regulating planetary life support system is a single, dynamic integrated system, and not the mere collection of ecosystems as once thought. This view has led to three linked breakthroughs in Earth system science: the Anthropocene (a new geological epoch defined by human influence on Earth system function), the Great Acceleration (the extraordinary increase in human impacts on Earth since the end of the Second World War), and Planetary Boundaries (limits within which humanity needs to stay for creating a safe and viable planet). Even if in early March 2024 a panel of experts voted down a proposal to officially declare the start of a new interval of geologic time, geoscientists don’t deny that products of modern civilization such as radionuclides from nuclear tests, plastics and industrial ash, concrete and metal pollutants, greenhouse warming, sharply increased species extinctions, and so forth, are leaving unmistakable remnants in the mineral record, particularly since the mid-20th century. 

In July 2022, the United Nations General Assembly declared that everyone on the planet has a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, indeed an important move in countering the alarming decline of the natural world. 

In March 2023, the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an eight-year long undertaking from the world’s most authoritative scientific body on climate change (physical science of climate change, scientists on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability to climate change, and scientists on climate change mitigation), stressed in particular the interdependence of climate, ecosystems and biodiversity, and human societies. 

At about the same time, in line with the European Green Deal priorities, in particular the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030 and the revised climate targets, a Horizon Europe project called GoNaturePositive! (GoNP) has been selected to support the development of policies and market conditions to scale up and accelerate the implementation of nature positive economic activities with particular focus on Nature-based Solutions (NBS). The development of existing and new market sectors with “nature-based enterprises” (NBEs) at the core is expected to use nature as an input to deliver nature positive outputs, i.e. products, services and jobs that are sustainable, future-oriented, and more resilient. 

According to UNEP State of Finance for Nature 2021, if the world is to meet by 2030 its climate change, biodiversity and land degradation targets, the investment will need to triple, unlocking in particular private finance (only 14% of the current investment). In fact, if the current investments in Nature-based solutions amount to USD 133 billion, most of which coming from public sources, in order to meet its targets, the world will need to close a USD 4.1 trillion financing gap in nature by 2050.

ENSA is fully engaged in the UN vision of a right to a healthy environment and has made work on this topic one of its top priorities for the years to come. After its experience with the Horizon 2020 URBiNAT project (2018-2023), focused on the regeneration of under-served urban neighborhoods through the co-creation of NBS, ENSA is currently participating in the Impact Board of the GoNP project to contribute to achieving a long-term shared vision of a Nature Positive Economy (NPE). ENSA is ready to support concrete endeavors aimed at tackling ecological global challenges, in particular by mobilizing its powerful international network of engineers, developers, investors, policy and governance experts, and thinkers, to raise awareness about Nature Positive initiatives and the NPE.