AECOM, the world's trusted infrastructure consulting firm, today announced the establishment of an integrated nature-based solutions team focused on delivering client solutions in the Company's Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) region. The ANZ team will deliver innovative nature-based solutions to address complex problems related to the impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss, and emissions reduction.
"We are proud to take another step towards delivering on our Sustainable Legacies commitment to create a lasting positive impact on our communities and the planet," said Richard Barrett, chief executive of AECOM's Australia and New Zealand region. "Nature-based solutions will be integral to transitioning to a low-carbon economy and adapting our communities and infrastructure to our changing climate. We acknowledge the intrinsic relationship between the built environment and natural systems and look forward to bringing our specialists together with First Nations expertise to help safeguard our future."
The ANZ nature-based solutions team will bring together AECOM's specialists in climate resilience, ecology, natural capital accounting and digital solutions and its extensive experience in water-sensitive urban design and landscape architecture. The team will leverage more than 200 technical professionals across AECOM's ANZ region and invite insights from First Nations communities to create opportunities for meaningful positive change.
The World Economic Forum has found that more than half the world's wealth is moderately or highly dependent on nature and its ecosystem services, such as climate regulation, carbon storage, pollination, and water regulation. Nature-based solutions are actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural and modified ecosystems that address societal challenges adaptively, simultaneously benefiting people and nature, as defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Cathy Crawley, AECOM's newly appointed nature-based solutions lead in ANZ, will head the team in Brisbane. With more than 30 years of international experience in environment, sustainability, and climate resilience consulting, she brings technical knowledge of the inter-relationships between the natural environment and business needs, and the shared value gained from assessing the environment more holistically. In this role, she will build on AECOM's extensive experience to support the delivery of nature-positive outcomes for clients and communities.
The nature-based solutions team's service offering will include:
- Integration of nature-based solutions into design, planning, building, infrastructure, and delivery projects
- Supporting our clients to engage with the emerging Nature Markets framework in the region, facilitating enhanced capital flows to nature-based solutions
- Natural Capital Accounting to reveal the true value of ecosystem services that natural systems provide and incorporate more fully into cost-benefit analysis and project decision-making
- Developing natural solutions for resilience and disaster risk reduction
- Ecological restoration and enhancement to deliver ecosystem services and community benefits
- The use of digital solutions to enhance our understanding, assessment, and communication of the value of the natural environment
- ESG corporate advisory services, including supporting client response to the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures.
AECOM has completed more than 300 climate resilience projects at a local, regional, state, national and international scale across the globe. Notable projects include the Resilient Reefs initiative, which supports five UNESCO World Heritage-listed coral reefs globally, and Natural Capital Laboratory Scotland, a living laboratory for identifying, quantifying, and valuing the impacts of rewilding. This new investment in nature-based solutions has enormous scope to help other organisations meet their carbon reduction and biodiversity net gain targets.
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About AECOM
AECOM is the world's trusted infrastructure consulting firm, delivering professional services throughout the project lifecycle – from advisory, planning, design and engineering to program and construction management. On projects spanning transportation, buildings, water, new energy and the environment, our public- and private-sector clients trust us to solve their most complex challenges. Our teams are driven by a common purpose to deliver a better world through our unrivaled technical and digital expertise, a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion, and a commitment to environmental, social and governance priorities. AECOM is a Fortune 500 firm and its Professional Services business had revenue of $13.1 billion in fiscal year 2022. See how we are delivering sustainable legacies for generations to come at aecom.com
