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Dagmara Karbowska, Programme Manager
Nearly 75% of the infrastructure that will exist in 2050 has yet to be built. This presents a significant opportunity for engineers to help bend the curve of nature loss by integrating restoration and regeneration into infrastructure by design.
One example of this shift can be seen in the growing adoption of nature-positive approaches across sectors, from ports and coastal infrastructure to transport and energy systems. WWF's Nature Positive Ocean Pathways for Ports Contributions demonstrates how the AR3T framework (Avoid, Reduce, Restore and Regenerate, Transform), developed by the Science Based Targets Network, can be applied across the port lifecycle, from planning and design through to operation and decommissioning.
The report provides practical examples of nature-positive infrastructure, including eco-engineered breakwaters that dissipate wave energy while creating habitat, vegetated drainage systems, biodiversity-enhancing quay walls in Vigo Port, living seawalls in Florida, and mangrove restoration in Indonesia that strengthens coastal resilience while supporting biodiversity.
The case for a more proactive role for engineers in restoring nature is exceptionally strong given the dependency of critical infrastructure on healthy ecosystems. Ports depend on stable sediment systems, wetlands reduce drainage requirements, mangroves lower coastal flooding risk, and hydropower depends on healthy river catchments. Ecosystem decline puts those who design, build, operate and maintain critical infrastructure in a reactive mode, compensating for the loss of ecosystem services while absorbing rising costs, risks and infrastructure vulnerabilities. By embracing nature, the construction industry can fundamentally shift the risk profile of infrastructure systems, reducing risk at its source by lowering the intensity of hazards rather than simply protecting against them.
Drawing on evidence and case studies from the Foundation's Foresight Review of Nature-Positive Engineering, we can identify three mechanisms through which nature-positive infrastructure may contribute to safety:
These benefits are compelling, but delivering them at scale requires new approaches to designing, operating and governing infrastructure, creating transition risks that need to be understood and managed.
The challenge is understanding what is required to deliver these benefits at scale, and how the resulting transition risks can be managed.
At Lloyd’s Register Foundation, our focus is on transitions which create new risks due to gaps in knowledge, standards, and skills. This is also the case with transitioning to nature-positive infrastructure.
Nature-positive infrastructure involves working with dynamic systems that evolve over time through environmental conditions and feedback loops. Ports are a good example: infrastructure, sediments, habitats and operations continuously interact and evolve. While engineers have always worked with dynamic systems, nature-positive infrastructure introduces greater variability because natural systems cannot be predicted or managed with any certainty.
If infrastructure behaves as a dynamic system, the question becomes: how do we manage that behaviour over time? The key here is advanced modelling, long term monitoring, and adaptive intervention. Safety is achieved not through eliminating uncertainty, but by actively responding to it.
Port developers are only one actor within a broader ecosystem. Much of the risk is locked in during design and construction through decisions on site selection, materials and layout, which shape long-term interactions between infrastructure and natural systems.
The argument here is that you cannot design safe, nature-positive infrastructure at project level alone. You need ecosystem-level coordination, shared metrics, and aligned incentives.
The World Economic Forum and Lloyd's Register Foundation's Accelerating Critical Transformations for Ports (ACT Ports) initiative highlights that “the critical shift is not from grey to green infrastructure, but from project delivery to ecosystem orchestration”. Fragmentation amplifies instability.
Safety at a systems level is achieved through coordinated governance, data, skills and environmental integration. Transforming approaches to engineering will require an entire ecosystem of actors to rethink how risk, value and performance are assessed and integrated into infrastructure decision-making.
It is also worth noting that nature-positive infrastructure will create new working environments, for example, working from floating platforms or on uneven natural terrains, and operating in tidal zones. More research is needed into the occupational safety and health impacts of these new scenarios.
The transition to nature-positive infrastructure is not simply about replacing grey infrastructure with green alternatives. It requires new evidence, metrics, skills and governance approaches across the infrastructure ecosystem.
If nature-positive approaches are to become mainstream, engineers, financiers, policymakers, clients and operators will all need to participate in reshaping how infrastructure is planned, delivered and managed. The prize is significant: infrastructure that is not only better for nature and climate, but safer and more resilient for the communities that depend on it.
This article has been developed based on a presentation given by Dagmara Karbowska at the XXXIInd Global ISSA Construction Conference took place from July 2–3, 2026, in Limassol, Cyprus. Program – XXXIInd Global ISSA Construction Conference.
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