Nature-based Solutions for Major Societal Challenges

Session 3: Policy Instruments for NbS

NbS go beyond individual nature conservation projects and encompass environmental, social and economic domains. To enable successful NbS implementation and to sustain NbS actions and impacts beyond stand-alone projects, it is important for NbS to be mainstreamed through various policy instruments. A policy instrument is ‘a deliberate structured effort by governors to solve a policy problem by modifying actions of the governed’ (Brukas and Sallnäs, 2012).

Policy instruments are often broadly categorised into three main types: 

• Legislative, regulatory and strategic instruments; 
• Economic and fiscal instruments; and 
• Soft/supportive instruments (Borrás & Edquist, 2013; Mees, 2014, van der Jagt et al., 2023; Wurzel et al., 2013). 

The broad type of ‘soft/supportive instruments’, has been further distinguished into ‘agreement-based or cooperative instruments’ and ‘knowledge, communication and innovation instruments’ (Davis et al., 2024). According to the Urban Governance Atlas, an interactive database of policy instruments for NbS and ecosystem restoration, the four types of policy instruments are explained as follows in Table 4.

 

Table 4: Types of policy instruments

Policy Instrument Type	Explanation from the Urban Governance Atlas	Local Example in Hong Kong
Legislative, regulatory and strategic instruments	usually binding laws and regulations as well as strategies that set visions and strategic goals	Town Planning Ordinance (Cap. 131) and Town Planning Board Guidelines
Economic and fiscal instruments	instruments that influence market mechanisms through for instance disincentives, incentives, payments, subsidies, financing mechanisms and market-based instruments	Government Sustainable Bond Programme
Agreement-based or cooperative instruments	instruments in which the government and/or involved actors jointly and on a voluntarily basis decide to behave in a certain way	Charter on External Lighting
Knowledge, communication and innovation instruments	try to influence behaviour by disseminating information to actors or involving actors in critical processes in innovative ways to inspire voluntary behavioural changes	Green Hong Kong Campaign

 

Governance factors affecting NbS implementation include stakeholder engagement and equity; knowledge on NbS implementation and performance; financial tools and support; as well as political will and long-term commitment (Martin et al., 2025). Considering these factors, this session will introduce some examples of different policy instruments for promoting NbS, specifically focusing on the following aspects:

1. Strengthening political commitment and institutional coordination
2. Fostering cross-sectoral collaboration
3. Catalysing finance and investment
4. Generating and sharing new knowledge

 

Continue to 'Strengthening political commitment and institutional coordination'

 

 

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