On 3 September 2019, The European Commission published two new guidance documents on working with nature to resolve urgent societal challenges. Nature is key to limiting the impact of climate change and ensure long-term sustainable economic development.

The EU Guidance on integrating ecosystems and their services in decision-making (part 1, part 2, part 3) aims to help decision-makers improve the impact, cost-effectiveness and sustainability of their policies, plans and investments. It highlights the benefits that flow from nature and the need to protect ecosystems to ensure these benefits. The Guidance provides numerous steps and tools to assess and integrate the benefits of nature, and it applies to all ecosystems across EU landscapes and marine environments.

The EU Guidance on a strategic framework for further supporting the deployment of EU-level green and blue infrastructure aims to help planners integrate natural landscapes into strategic green and blue infrastructure. Green infrastructure is a network of natural and semi-natural areas designed and managed to deliver a variety of ecosystem services; it covers biodiversity-rich land and water spaces in rural and urban settings. The guidance document encourages the scaling-up of investments in EU-level green infrastructure and aims to maximise the delivery of ecosystem services, using the Natura 2000 network.