Penn IUR, the United Nations Environment Programme unveil new framework to address gap in urban nature finance
The Penn Institute for Urban Research has released a report for the United Nations Environment Programme Cities Unit’s State of Finance for Nature in Cities, From Grey to Green: Better data to finance nature in cities, during COP16 Colombia.
The report highlights the need for more robust data—and tools—to help cities integrate nature-based solutions into their financial and planning frameworks.
Urban areas are home to more than half of the world’s population and are responsible for 70% of carbon dioxide emissions and 75 percent of resource use globally. Yet few cities have nature-based objectives, data, budget performance measurements, or guidelines that incorporate nature across municipal budgets, says report co-author Amanda Lloyd, global programs director at Penn IUR.
The report offers a tool for cities: a nature activity budget assessment with education components and simplified typologies designed to help cities integrate nature and nature-based solutions into their budget planning, connect to their biodiversity action plans, and target new financing and funding for nature.
Using case studies, the report guides cities on tracking, budgeting, and scaling their investments in nature, offering a path toward greener, more resilient urban futures.
The report is co-authored by Eugenie L. Birch, co-director of Penn IUR and Sam Geldin, a postdoctoral researcher at Penn IUR.
Griffin Pitt, right, works with two other student researchers to test the conductivity, total dissolved solids, salinity, and temperature of water below a sand dam in Kenya.
Griffin Pitt’s upbringing made her passionate about water access and pollution, and Penn has given her the opportunity to explore these issues back home in North Carolina and abroad.
Helping robots work together to explore the Moon and Mars
Penn Engineers, NASA, and five other universities tested robotic systems designed to help unmanned explorers cooperate in the dunes of White Sands, New Mexico, paving the way for Moon and Mars exploration.
From framework to actions: Provost John L. Jackson Jr. talks Penn Forward
In a Q&A, Provost John L. Jackson Jr. explains the relationship between the strategic framework In Principle and Practice and Penn Forward—a new University-wide process and action plan that will advance Penn forward for the next decade and beyond.
