A system for navigating nature-related technologies will be announced on Tuesday by two collaborating initiatives at biodiversity conference COP16, Carbon Pulse has learned.
The Nature Tech Collective has been working with non-profit Impact Labs to develop the Open Nature Tech Taxonomy, said Gilad Goren, executive director of the collective.
“As the nature tech sector continues to evolve and scale, to include more stakeholders, the need for a shared language and lexicon is all the more apparent,” Goren told Carbon Pulse.
“This framework is our community’s effort to provide a navigational tool for any business, financial firm, or NGO with a guide to answering a core if practical question: ‘What tool is relevant to address my specific nature-related challenge, in my specific geographic locations of interest?’”
The goals of the taxonomy project are to:
- Enable nature tech solution-providers to identify themselves within a broader category of reference
- Help users navigate to the right nature tech solutions for their needs
- Present a clear overview of the emerging nature tech ecosystem for unfamiliar audiences
The final output of the project is imagined as an AI-driven digital search tool. The Nature Tech Taxonomy will debut at COP16 on Tuesday on a stage hosted by the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre.
“As regulations and frameworks frequently change and new solutions and subcategories of solutions emerge, we need a shared frame of reference and a common understanding of what ‘nature tech’ is,” said the white paper.
“The mix of incoming regulations and disclosure frameworks, alongside the realisation that climate resilience is becoming an existential issue for the survival of the business, is driving the interest in nature tech solutions,” said Goren.
The tech actors want the taxonomy to ultimately accelerate the transition to a sustainable, nature-positive economy by making it easier to scale solutions, according to the paper.
THREE LENSES
The tech taxonomy proposed categorising solutions across three key under-development ‘lenses’: transition, nature, and tech.
Source: Nature Tech Open Taxonomy
The transition lens focuses on the systemic shifts needed to create a nature-positive future. Grounded in the One Earth Solutions Framework, it covers areas such as conservation and regenerative agriculture.
The nature lens maps complementary frameworks, such as The Stockholm Resilience Center’s planetary boundaries research, to help users understand the phenomena within natural systems.
Finally, the tech lens identifies the nature tech solutions across the ‘5Ms’: monitoring, modelling, and monetisation, material change, and market pressures.
The taxonomy so far has been developed in consultation with experts from fields such as conservation, technology, and finance.
The next steps in the development of the taxonomy are focused on gathering feedback to refine the framework. A working group of experts will be established to further consult on the taxonomy’s development.
The team will continue developing the lenses, before work on an AI-driven tool to help users navigate the taxonomy in 2025.
Measurement, reporting, and verification initiative MRV Collective relaunched as Nature Tech Collective to underline its change in focus towards nature technology in 2023.
By Thomas Cox – t.cox@carbon-pulse.com
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