Making green infrastructure work for nature, climate and people

NbSI's researcher Alison Smith has been working with Natural England to help curate existing standards and guidelines into a comprehensive framework consisting of a ‘Core Menu’ and five ‘Headline Standards’. February 20, 2025
Aerial view of road and greenspace
A new menu of standards for green infrastructure in England aims to help deliver green space that is accessible, connected, multifunctional, and reflects local character.

A recent paper in Frontiers of Environmental Science sets out a comprehensive menu of standards for green infrastructure in England. Multi-functional green infrastructure (GI) can provide nature-based solutions with benefits for human health and biodiversity, while helping to address climate change. For example, GI such as street trees, parks, green roofs and raingardens can play a vital role in keeping our towns and cities clean, cool, safe and healthy. However, GI needs to be carefully planned to make sure we have enough green space for people and nature to thrive.

To help local authorities deliver high quality, multifunctional GI that meets local needs as well as national priorities, Natural England has been developing a framework of GI Principles and Standards in partnership with a broad range of researchers and practitioners.

NbSI researcher Alison Smith has been working with Natural England to help curate a comprehensive framework from existing standards and guidelines. The framework includes five Headline Standards and this new paper outlines a Core Menu to support their delivery. Read more on the Agile Initiative website.

Critically, the paper also shows how the draft standards provide flexibility to help balance national targets on climate, nature and health with the need to meet local needs, constraints and priorities.

Natural England will consult on and test the draft Core Menu with local authorities and other stakeholders over the next year.

The paper was co-authored by Alison Smith (NbSI, Agile, LCNR, ECI) at the University of Oxford, with colleagues from Birmingham City University, the University of Manchester, Natural England and Peter Neal Consulting.

Read the full paper online and learn more about the Agile Sprint research that contributed to it: “How do we scale up Nature-based Solutions?”