Green Infrastructure as a Bridging Concept Between Biodiversity Protection and the Green Economy

Under the title "Wellbeing and Equity within planetary boundaries" the biannual conference of the International Society of Ecological Economics (ISEE) took place in Reykjavik (Iceland) from 13 until 15 August 2014. Timo Kaphengst from Ecologic Institute presented a paper on "Green Infrastructure as a bridging concept between biodiversity protection and the green economy". In total, Ecologic Institute contributed three official inputs to the ISEE conference. The presentation slides are available for download.

In his presentation, Timo Kaphengst highlighted some conceptual thoughts on the merits of green infrastructure both for nature conservation in Europe and for the wellbeing of people (e.g. recreational and health benefits and the creation of jobs). Furthermore, some results from the project of Ecologic Institute on design, implementation and cost efficiency of green infrastructure were presented.

He concluded that within the green economy green infrastructure can be regarded as a promising measure to invest in natural capital, which is also a particular objective of the EU 2020 Biodiversity Strategy. However, there are remaining challenges, for example the integration of the various policy sectors involved in the implementation of green infrastructure (e.g. water management, transport, agriculture and forestry, energy and the urban/built environment).

The paper presented was published in early 2015.