Fanni Nyírő’s scientific contributions

1. The six MERLIN Sectoral Strategies provide a vision for integrating Nature-based Solutions (NbS) into key economic sectors (Agriculture; Hydropower; Insurance; Navigation; Peat Extraction; Water Supply and Sanitation). 2. Economic sectors both depend on and impact freshwater ecosystems—NbS align private benefits with public goods like flood risk mitigation. 3. The business case for NbS includes cost reduction, risk management, regulatory compliance, sustainability commitments, and brand value. 4. The Strategies promote not only freshwater measures but also a shift toward recognizing natural capital as a business priority. 5. These Strategies aim to foster Communities of Practice (CoPs), engaging businesses, policymakers, financial institutions, and sectoral associations. as well as other civic and financial institutions. 6. Actions cover 'why,' 'what,' 'when,' and 'who'— starting with evidence gathering, followed by knowledge sharing, capacity building, policy shaping, and securing funding. 7. Collaboration is key, requiring cross-sector partnerships at catchment, national, and EU levels, alongside policy support from nonenvironmental sectors. 8. An enabling policy environment is essential, with non-environmental sectors (e.g., Agriculture, Energy) needing to support NbS. 9. With rising economic competitiveness concerns, sectors show interest in NbS, but further work is needed to turn strategies into action.

1. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) offer the potential to address societal, economic and environmental challenges: MERLIN emphasises NbS that go beyond traditional conservation-focused restoration by integrating solutions that enhance biodiversity, support climate adaptation, contribute to societal well-being, while also addressing new economic opportunities. 2. A just transformation is essential for the equitable distribution of NbS benefits: Deliverable 4.2 applied a justice framework, encompassing representation, involvement, and equitable distribution to explore pathways for more just and equitable development of NbS. A just transformation refers to a systemic change that emphasises equity, ensuring all stakeholders are included and that the outcomes are fairly distributed. 3. Identifying win-win scenarios aligning economic interests with ecosystem restoration: MERLIN engaged six economic sectors - agriculture, hydropower, insurance, inland navigation, peat extraction, and water supply and sanitation – through roundtables, workshops, and interviews, forming sectoral Communities of Practice (CoPs) to encourage knowledge sharing and collaboration. The CoPs were designed to create ownership, driving the mainstreaming of NbS across sectors. 4. Effective networks were built through persistence and support: Successful CoPs were driven by strong partnerships and persistence, while other sectors faced difficulties in finding common ground due to conflicts of interest, particularly between public goods (for free) and private goods (for profit). Long-term engagement, in-person workshops, clear goals and trust are crucial for sustaining momentum. 5. Sectoral perceptions of NbS evolved over time, but challenges remain: While the six sectors demonstrated increased openness to NbS, challenges persisted, particularly regarding the financial feasibility of large-scale implementation of NbS projects and ongoing conceptual confusion, especially in defining and measuring the effectiveness of NbS. Demonstrating tangible benefits and developing standard metrics is needed for broader support. 6. Representation and inclusion are critical for a just NbS transformation: The CoPs engaged influential stakeholders but lacked local landowners and communities, challenging full representative justice. However, the focus on EU-level engagement as essential for addressing higher level barriers, including clearer regulatory guidance and other institutional sector-specific challenges. 7. Balancing diverse views and avoiding power imbalances: Stakeholders expressed varied and sometimes conflicting views on NbS. The process effectively recognised diverse perspectives, but it was challenging to address power imbalances, particularly between private sector stakeholders and environmental advocates. Conflict resolution will be critical for balancing competing interests. 8. Distributional justice is essential for just transformations: Stakeholders raised concerns about who should bear the costs of NbS and who benefits from its implementation. Addressing these concerns through clear incentives and equitable responsibility-sharing will be crucial for mainstreaming NbS.

1. Using Value Chain Analysis to Promote NbS This report applies Value Chain Analysis (VCA) to key economic sectors within the MERLIN project, exploring how Nature-based Solutions (NbS) can be integrated into freshwater ecosystem restoration. The focus of VCA is to understand and illustrate the mechanisms through which value is created across sectors, including economic, social, and environmental dimensions. This extended approach goes beyond conventional analyses that prioritise commercial value, emphasising how NbS contribute to broader societal and ecological benefits. By examining examples from the Water Supply and Sanitation (WSS), Agriculture, Insurance, and Peat Extraction sectors in Europe, the report demonstrates that VCA is an effective tool for promoting NbS adoption. It highlights how NbS create value in ways that are both attractive to businesses and aligned with sustainability goals. 2. Synergising Economic and Ecological Gains with NbS within Value Chains Nature-based Solutions (NbS) provide an opportunity to align economic and ecological goals within value chains. By identifying sector-specific value chain challenges, integrating NbS helps make environmental resilience and economic interests mutually beneficial. Enhancing freshwater ecosystem resilience with NbS is not just corporate responsibility or green marketing but a strategy for generating commercial benefits. While initial external support may be needed to kickstart NbS, long-term gains such as reduced costs, risk mitigation, and enhanced reputation make NbS attractive for businesses, ultimately driving internal investment. 3. Leveraging Financial Support to Implement NbS across Value Chains Pro-environmental capital investments and financial incentives are crucial in driving the adoption of NbS across value chains. These supports enable key actors to gain economic advantages while implementing sustainable practices, creating win-win scenarios that make NbS integration commercially viable in the long term. However, the role of standards is equally important in ensuring consumer support for NbS. Certification schemes and labels, while helpful, often face challenges due to the proliferation of different standards, some of which lack proper accountability mechanisms. For example, schemes like the RPP (Responsibly Produced Peat) support freshwater NbS but remain largely invisible to consumers, limiting their impact. Streamlining standards and enhancing transparency can help ensure broader consumer awareness and support for NbS. 4. Enhancing Standards for NbS Integration into Value Chains Many sectoral standards need to be renewed or updated for the purpose of a more comprehensive integration of NbS, with possibilities to involve a certification scheme or consumer label issuing procedure. More up-to-date sectoral standards are considered as an institutional instrument to provide systematic solutions to include NbS into value chains, as they provide a structured framework for ensuring that NbS are implemented effectively, facilitating their adoption while offering long-term economic and environmental benefits. This is particularly important for aligning value chains with broader environmental goals. 5. Fostering Stakeholder Engagement to Maximise NbS in Value Chains The success of mainstreaming NbS hinges on collaboration among various stakeholders involved in interconnected value chains. Public agencies, private companies, NGOs, and local communities must work together to ensure that NbS are effectively integrated and that their benefits are maximised among different actors. Moreover, a systematic understanding of NbS in value chain requires also cross-sectoral cooperation and not limiting the vision within sectors. 6. Driving Innovation and Sustainability through NbS in Value Chains Ongoing research and development are necessary to further integrate NbS into sectoral value chains. On the one hand, more technical advancements are desired to improve the efficacy and efficiency of NbS. On the other hand, strengthening institutional capacities and creating platforms for knowledge sharing and collaboration will drive innovation and sustainability, ensuring that NbS can continue to enhance the value-adding process across various sectors.

A collaborative approach with key economic sectors is essential to enable the H2020 MERLIN project to promote systemic transformative change. We co-develop transformation strategies with different sectors to mainstream restoration as a Nature-based Solution (NbS). Working with nature at landscape scale can contribute to the EU Green Deal objectives (climate resilience, improved biodiversity, zero pollution, sustainable food systems, health, and wellbeing). NbS has been defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as "actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits". 1 This briefing focuses on the Peat Extraction Sector. It summarises MERLIN's understanding of the sector's current connection with rivers and wetlands, and how Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are viewed within the sector at the start of the collaboration. The briefing proposes how MERLIN (for more information visit www.project-merlin.eu) can support the Peat Extraction Sector to implement NbS.

MERLIN Deliverable D4.1 2 MERLIN Key messages 1. Mainstreaming aquatic restoration using Nature-based Solutions (NbS) requires involving all relevant stakeholders and understanding their connection with rivers and wetlands. We work with six economic 'MERLIN' sectors (Agriculture, Hydropower, Insurance, Navigation, Peat Extraction and Water Supply and Sanitation). 2. Our data suggests these sector actors are aware of the environmental and socioeconomic challenges arising from degraded freshwater ecosystems and are aware of the types of NbS that MERLIN will demonstrate and implement. However, not all sector actors were convinced of the need for radical change/transformation or that they could rely on NbS to deliver their sector needs. 3. The language of NbS is not well embedded (yet) with these sectors, however concepts of sustainability and working with nature are well understood. With its focus on meeting societal goals, NbS can address the sectors' concerns about balancing environment, social and economic objectives. 4. The sectors are seeking evidence regarding the benefits of NbS to their sector, concrete examples of NbS at the catchment scale and assistance to integrate sectoral concerns into spatial catchment management. 5. There are strong interdependencies and synergies between the MERLIN sectors. However, there are also potential trade-offs and challenges. We are building a Community of Practice to support an understanding of NbS, how we can enable mainstreaming of NbS in the six MERLIN sectors, and most importantly, how the sectors can work together. MERLIN Deliverable D4.1 3 MERLIN Executive Summary Our research has highlighted that there is a shared awareness that the freshwater environment is under threat and that the European Green Deal provides a supportive agenda to address these threats. In MERLIN we focus on how to mainstream freshwater restoration through Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in order to develop solutions for both nature and society, in the spirit of the Green Deal. NbS require the engagement of all relevant stakeholders including the economic sectors that affect, and are affected by, interventions in our freshwater ecosystems. We focus on Agriculture, Hydropower, Insurance, Navigation, Peat Extraction and Water Supply and Sanitation Sectors, but other sectors, including the finance sector, are also important. Our data suggests these sector actors are aware of the environmental and socioeconomic challenges arising from degraded freshwater ecosystems and are aware of the types of NbS that MERLIN will demonstrate and implement. However, not all sector actors were convinced of the need for radical change or that they could rely on NbS to deliver their sector needs. Our challenge is to illustrate how using NbS can advance the Green Deal goals, given that most actors were supportive of the overall vision. Roles and responsibilities remain unclear and some sectors (Agriculture, Hydropower, Peat Extraction) are more involved in implementing NbS within their own properties than others that mainly rely on the 'downstream' benefits (Insurance, Navigation, Water Supply and Sanitation). Some intra-and inter-sectoral tensions were identified; and there are still questions about how to support collective action at the catchment scale to coordinate different actors involved in water management and use. Sectors were concerned about how NbS will balance economic, environmental and social objectives and how 'burden-sharing' of restoring nature will be governed. There were concerns about impacts on business profitability but also about wider trade-offs e.g. with food or energy security. These are opportunities to show how true NbS address societal goals over the longer term, in ways that should help businesses become more resilient to the pressure of climate and other changes. Policies can play a stronger role in supporting NbS and integrated water management. There are also opportunities to value working with nature through certification and value chains; and to harness innovative finance to work at scale and at pace. The approach in MERLIN aligns with the IUCN principles for NbS but there is still a long way to go, due to the challenges outlined above. This is our baseline from which we will engage representatives from the six MERLIN sectors on some prioritised areas for cooperation around provision of evidence, policy and value chain recommendations, implications for social justice and networking. The MERLIN Academy can support this with resources to respond to concerns over information and training. Most importantly, we are building a Community of Practice to try to address the tensions, trade-offs and burden-sharing questions. The robust debates experienced in the development of this briefing illustrates the benefits of such a cross-sectoral and trans-disciplinary forum.