MERLIN illustrates environmental value chains as well as costs and benefits of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) for selected European regions, demonstrating opportunities for green business resulting from transformative restoration. We identify the potential of restoration to generate new cash flows, sustainable productive capacities and value chains. To account for the various contexts in which restoration takes place, we collated different mechanisms for public and private financing of restoration and developed them into easily accessible, ready-to-use tools, our so called Off-the-Shelf-Instruments.

MERLIN works closely together with six economic sectors (Agriculture, Hydropower, Insurance, Navigation, Peat Extraction, Water Supply and Sanitation) to achieve a wider transformative change and a mainstreaming of Nature-based Solutions into business practices. This includes mapping restoration needs and opportunities for businesses to work with nature and developing sectoral strategies to integrate NbS into the sectors. The sectors were engaged through Round Tables and Communities of Practice. With Naturland (Agriculture), the International Peatland Society (IPS; Peat Extraction) and Aqua Publica Europea (Water Supply and Sanitation) MERLIN has even sectoral partners in the consortium.