Leverage points for scaling nature-based adaptation to climate change

Despite ambitious goals and policies, climate change adaptation efforts remain slow and insufficient compared to the pace and magnitude of climate change. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) offer a holistic approach, with assumed co-benefits that jointly address climate change adaptation and mitigation, biodiversity conservation and other societal challenges. NbS are increasingly implemented to enhance local adaptation to climate change; however, they remain mostly marginal and isolated considering the magnitude of the challenge. Therefore, pathways to rapidly scale NbS are urgently needed. We hypothesise that NbS implementors are limited in their scaling strategies by their decision context. We propose an empirical framework for systemic analysis of decision contexts for scaling NbS, showcased for the Grenoble Region in the French Alps. We use mixed qualitative methods—policy and strategy document analysis, interviews and workshops with NbS experts, to explore a pathway to a conducive decision context. To characterize this context and the pathway to scaling, we identified the main leverage points, their underpinning levers and their interactions. According to workshops participants, NbS scaling should be supported by a combination of several deep and some shallow leverage points working simultaneously, including knowledge production and sharing, values and perception, local governance, supportive policies, financial support and landscape planning culture. Our results stress the need for more emphasis on how to support the integration of NbS principles into cultural roots and values; and on how to integrate deep leverage points into adaptation policies and strategies. However, this entails many challenges because of the diversity of actors with different objectives, values and power, and the multiple institutional scales and timeframes. We propose our integrative approach as a way to further support decision-makers in navigating complex decision contexts for scaling NbS and building on simultaneous progress within each leverage point.