Nature-positive engineering guiding principles

The vision for NPE is to become a universal framework that applies across all engineering contexts, facilitating coordination among policymakers, investors, and industry stakeholders pursuing nature-positive outcomes. 

Central to this framework are the NPE guiding principles, developed through an extensive literature review and expert consultation. These principles are the essential building blocks for implementing NPE. Together, they reflect both the philosophical and practical foundations needed to achieve a nature-positive world.

Fostering a mutually enhancing Human-Nature relationship191 – Recognise that humans are part of nature itself192 and that solutions must deliver benefits across environmental, social, and economic dimensions, requiring the collective involvement of multiple disciplines. Successful NPE creates a self-reinforcing cycle where ecological health improves human wellbeing, in turn strengthening community stewardship of natural systems. It moves beyond the false division of nature versus development, and recognises nature as an asset with inherent value.

Taking a whole lifecycle approach to ecological impacts193 – Assess impacts on natural ecosystems across the full lifecycle and identify opportunities for positive interventions at every stage – including material sourcing, construction methods, and operations and decommissioning. Prioritise solutions that move beyond ‘no harm’ to actively enhance biodiversity. Where feasible, favour no-build or low-build options.194

Delivering measurable nature improvements – Establish clear, evidence-based metrics, supported by robust measurement and monitoring frameworks, and enhancing multiple dimensions of nature, including biodiversity, atmospheric and ocean metrics, and tracking these outcomes over time using methodologies based on common principles.

Recognising interconnectedness across scales and timeframes – Acknowledge that NPE interventions have complex, far-reaching effects that extend beyond project boundaries and interact with broader ecological and social dynamics. Consider that ecological creation, recovery and regeneration unfolds over time, design for both immediate functional enhancements and long-term ecological processes.195

Co-developing solutions with local communities and Indigenous People196 – Ground solutions in principles of inclusivity, equity, and respect for diverse knowledge systems. Indigenous and local knowledge offer critical insights into ecosystem dynamics, sustainable practices, and culturally meaningful solutions. Successful implementation depends on ongoing care and management, which is most effectively provided by engaged local communities with direct stakes in ecosystem health.

Designing multifunctional197, regenerative systems198 – Adopt regenerative design practices that restore ecosystems and create circular systems where materials are reused, recycled, repurposed or safely disposed of. This involves responding to each location and context’s unique features while ensuring benefits are equitably distributed across communities and contributing positively to planetary health beyond just local biodiversity.199

Managing complex risks and trade-offs200 – Proactively identify and assess complex risks and potential tensions between engineering functionality, ecological enhancement, and equity. Develop frameworks to evaluate these trade-offs transparently, acknowledging that perfect solutions rarely exist. Balance immediate infrastructure needs against long-term ecosystem recovery while maintaining safety and functionality. Engage stakeholders in transparent discussions about risk tolerance and acceptable compromises.

Addressing the climate-nature-health nexus through adaptive management201 – Acknowledge the reality of accelerating climate change and the need to consider combined climate-nature futures and their impact on both human health and natural ecosystems; build flexibility and adaptability in infrastructure and natural systems so they can withstand and adapt to changing conditions.

Fostering interdisciplinary collaboration – Bring together diverse forms of knowledge from engineering, ecology, social sciences, and other fields from project inception. Recognising that no single discipline possesses all the knowledge needed to design effective nature-positive solutions, use collaborative approaches that bridge traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Anticipating and managing potential unintended consequences – Recognise that well-intentioned interventions in complex ecosystems may trigger unexpected and potentially unsafe consequences. Understand the natural system, monitor and be prepared to course correct when nature responds in unanticipated ways to engineered solutions.

This foresight review reveals eight key findings that frame both the challenge and opportunity of NPE: 

Engineers can be change agents in addressing the nature crisis.

The accelerating nature crisis requires immediate action; every year of delay in adopting nature-positive approaches raises both the costs of intervention and the risk of irreversible ecological damage. As the principal designers and builders of infrastructure and the built environment, engineers directly shape how humanity interacts with natural systems. This gives them not only a profound responsibility but also a unique opportunity to lead the transition toward regenerative, nature-positive solutions through NPE practices.

Nature-positive must also be people-positive. 

People are part of nature, not separate from it. NPE must deliberately integrate human safety and wellbeing with nature’s wellbeing. This connection isn’t automatic – it requires thoughtful design that delivers safer outcomes and social equity alongside environmental health. When communities thrive from nature’s recovery, they become its strongest advocates, creating lasting stewardship relationships. 

Systemic barriers exist across policy, finance and technical capacity. 

Current policy frameworks, financing mechanisms, and technical standards still favour traditional ‘grey’ infrastructure over nature-positive alternatives, creating systemic barriers to NPE adoption. Fragmented regulations, siloed approaches, and short-term financial thinking misalign with nature’s longer recovery timeframes, while both engineering education and current practice lack integration of the interdisciplinary knowledge, skills and competencies necessary for implementing nature-positive solutions. 

Promising approaches exist across all sectors. 

Innovative NPE solutions are already being implemented across coastal protection, ports and shipping, and renewable energy sectors. These approaches demonstrate the feasibility of integrating ecological considerations into infrastructure development and provide valuable templates for engineering within natural environments.

NPE can accelerate nature-positive development. 

Future infrastructure development and urbanisation trends open the door to NPE and present timely opportunities for action. The task now is to enable and mobilise the engineering workforce to accelerate nature-positive change. NPE serves as a key implementation pathway for nature-positive infrastructure, embedding ecological considerations across the entire infrastructure lifecycle. In practice, NPE must address all drivers of biodiversity loss, including climate change, pollution, and resource consumption. A diverse range of existing approaches can support this vision and must now be embraced and scaled. Through greater clarity on what immediate, pragmatic actions can be taken, NPE can reshape human development to place both nature and society at the heart of design, fostering a more inclusive, equitable, and safer world where people and nature thrive together. 

A paradigm shift in engineering practice and education is needed. 

NPE requires a fundamental shift – from viewing nature as an expendable resource or an obstacle, to recognising it as a partner and ally. Nature positivity must become a core objective of engineering, alongside safety, efficiency, and functionality. This goes beyond sustainability’s focus on “doing less harm” towards a proactive ethos of “doing more good.” Achieving this will require transformation in both engineering practice and education, supported by changes in the regulatory systems within which engineers operate. Engineers must also play a leading role in developing the standards that enable NPE. 

Future solutions must consider a changing world. 

Designing resilient infrastructure that will function for decades requires planning for varied climate trajectories and ecological responses. Engineering must now incorporate adaptive, flexible solutions that balance environmental, social, and economic benefits, creating infrastructure that supports both natural systems and human communities. Achieving this calls for new ‘toolkits’ to better understand and manage complex risks and trade-offs.

Robust measurement and interdisciplinary collaboration are key. 

Standardised frameworks and metrics, long-term measurement, and monitoring are needed to scale up implementation, incentivise investment, and demonstrate meaningful progress. Sustained monitoring over extended timeframes becomes particularly critical as nature-positive interventions often require years or decades to reach full effectiveness, necessitating commitment to measurement programmes that extend well beyond typical project delivery cycles. NPE approaches require interdisciplinary collaboration, bringing together engineers, ecologists, social scientists, economists and other specialists; solutions should be co-designed with project developers, local communities, and Indigenous People. 

Engineers must find their voice. 

A nature-positive transformation requires systemic and urgent collaboration from across sectors, disciplines and regions. Engineers must step up and actively participate in the global nature-positive movement, working with others to break down existing barriers. They can become powerful advocates for delivering a nature-positive world. Alongside other built environment professionals, engineers possess invaluable insights about what can realistically be achieved and how to safely accelerate implementation. To do this, technical expertise must be actively engaged upstream in policy development and decision-making forums, ensuring that technical knowledge informs regulatory frameworks and investment priorities.

This foresight review makes ten recommendations for integrating NPE into engineering practice across three priority areas:

Enabling environment

Policy and regulations 

1. Leverage technology to identify synergistic planning and development opportunities: A comprehensive deep dive study should examine how cutting-edge technologies can enhance marine spatial planning and identify opportunities with blue economy agendas. This research should focus on how technology and data can support decision-making leveraging technologies such as integrated Geographic Information System (GIS) platforms, blockchain, satellite-based remote sensing, AI, and visualisation. Additionally, it should explore data sharing platforms and standardised protocols enabling collaboration across sectors and jurisdictions. 

2. Integrate nature-positive outcomes in permitting and procurement processes: Government procurement processes for infrastructure should be fundamentally redesigned to establish biodiversity enhancement as a core requirement rather than an optional consideration. This should include mandatory evaluation criteria that reward proposals demonstrating measurable ecological improvements, standardised biodiversity metrics for comparing tenders, requirements for long-term monitoring and contract conditions that ensure nature-positive commitments are delivered throughout project implementation.

Finance 

3. Finance: Evolve natural capital risk assessment frameworks: Financial institutions and multilateral development banks should adopt standardised methodologies for assessing both nature-related risks and opportunities in infrastructure investments. Building upon the TNFD recommendations, these frameworks should extend to include greater integration of climate risks, specific considerations on infrastructure assets across their lifecycle, new science and data, and sector-specific metrics. This would help redirect capital flows to the development of nature-positive infrastructure while better accounting for long-term risks to asset value.

Building technical capacity

Education and skills

4. Develop and roll out an NPE knowledge module for engineering education and continued professional development: A knowledge module on NPE should be created for integration into undergraduate and postgraduate engineering curricula, and continued professional development. This module would leverage the substantial knowledge base compiled in this foresight review as core content, covering NPE principles and case studies and expanding the scope from ocean infrastructure to other sectors, e.g. cities, transport. The module should be designed with input from industry practitioners, academic institutions and ecological experts to ensure relevance to future employment markets. The roll out should prioritise geographies where technical capacity lags, with support from local educational systems and professional development bodies.

Guidance and standards

5. Create lifecycle guidance for safe and sustainable implementation of NPE: A comprehensive framework should be developed that identifies clear entry points for NPE approaches and solutions within engineering decision-making processes and existing policy structures. Building on and referencing existing resources, this framework would help practitioners embed NPE principles throughout the project lifecycle, with sectoral versions created for different industries. 

6. Develop a climate-nature-health nexus ‘future toolkit’ for engineers: Engineers need a new toolkit to navigate complex interconnections between climate change, biodiversity and human health in infrastructure development. This should incorporate foresight methodologies such as scenario planning to anticipate ecological tipping points and system risks for infrastructure performance, including forward modelling of NPE approaches at critical temperature thresholds of 1.5°C, 2°C, and beyond. The toolkit should be developed through collaboration with IPBES and IPCC experts, scientists and practitioners across sectors. This effort must bring together engineers, policymakers, local communities and Indigenous people, investors, academia, and civil society, breaking down disciplinary silos for holistic decision-making that integrates technical requirements with ecological knowledge and community perspectives.

Research and innovation

7. Conduct a comprehensive assessment of nature-positive metrics for ocean infrastructure: A systematic review should be commissioned to identify, evaluate and standardise metrics for measuring biodiversity improvements and ecosystem service gains from nature-positive coastal infrastructure. This work should address the critical shortfall in marine and coastal metrics, as current frameworks like the State of Nature Metrics predominantly focus on terrestrial ecosystems. A dedicated Measurement and Monitoring Task Force should be established comprising industry leaders already developing metrics, alongside academic researchers, policymakers and regulatory bodies to coordinate efforts and prevent fragmentation. This should include practical guidance on baseline establishment, data collection protocols and verification methods suitable for different stakeholder capabilities. 

8. Collate insights and evidence on NPE interventions: A structured programme should collect and synthesise evidence from existing NPE case studies, focusing particularly on safety, performance-related outcomes, unintended consequences and examples of regenerative design that were underrepresented in the foresight review process. The NPE guiding principles should provide an assessment framework to evaluate these case studies, analysing how current practices align with aspirational NPE approaches. This effort should extend beyond marine infrastructure to include urban development, transport, and energy systems, building a comprehensive evidence base that highlights transferable lessons across sectors. 

Advocacy and partnerships

9. Establish an NPE global alliance and community of practice: A global partnership of engineering organisations committed to championing safe nature-positive approaches should be created. This alliance would coordinate advocacy efforts, amplify engineering voices in biodiversity policy discussions, and convene a community of practice for knowledge exchange and collective action on NPE. The alliance should join existing global nature-positive initiatives, such as the Nature Positive Initiative, to represent engineers and contribute to international scientific assessments by IPBES and the IPCC.

10. Advocate for safe nature-positive engineering practices across sectors and stakeholder groups: As a new and important addition that brings the rigor and scale of engineering to existing nature positive initiatives, there is a need to increase the visibility of NPE to scale adoption by engaging with engineers to highlight nature as both a key risk and opportunity; focusing on regulatory frameworks and policy synergies for policymakers; emphasising risk reduction and return opportunities for investors; and highlighting connections between biodiversity and community wellbeing for the public. The campaign should deliberately frame nature-positive approaches as people-positive by showcasing projects that deliver integrated benefits across social equity, economic development and nature gains.

Opportunities for Lloyd’s Register Foundation 

Lloyd’s Register Foundation is uniquely positioned to catalyze change where others cannot. Of the recommendations made in this review, there are two that are unlikely to progress in the near-term without the Foundation’s support due to a lack of business or regulatory drivers at time of writing. 

Developing an NPE knowledge module for engineering education (Recommendation 4). The Foundation’s most valuable role would be to act as a trusted convener, bringing together leading experts, universities, professional bodies, and training providers to co-create a knowledge module that embeds NPE principles into engineering education and professional development. Building on the substantial body of knowledge already generated through the foresight review, the Foundation could ensure that the module is not only technically sound, but also globally relevant, accessible, aligned with future skills needs, and by leveraging its international partnerships, the Foundation could help accelerate integration of NPE into curricula and professional standards worldwide. 

Collating insights and evidence on NPE interventions (Recommendation 8). This recommendation plays directly to the Foundation’s strength as a trusted source of safety evidence and insight. The Foundation’s role could be to convene and commission collaborations between academic, research, and practitioner communities to systematically gather and assess global evidence on how NPE principles are being implemented in practice. By enabling the curation of this evidence base and making it accessible, the Foundation could close critical knowledge gaps, provide clarity on what works, and enable decision-makers to act with confidence. 

Additionally, the Foundation is in a position to influence the implementation of all recommendations within this review, using its independence and evidence-based approach to drive wider uptake of nature-positive engineering.