From Pilots to Practice: The Sector’s Push to Mainstream Nature-Based Solutions

Insights from Naiara Fonseca and  Noah Stommel, following British Water’s Manchester conference

The UK water sector has never been short of pilots. What it has historically lacked is the ability, or perhaps the permission, to scale them.

That dilemma was examined at British Water’s “Creating a More Sustainable Water Sector Conference” in Manchester, where conversations shifted noticeably from what could work to what must be now made to work at scale.

One thing is increasingly clear: the direction of travel is no longer up for debate. The real question is whether the water sector can move fast enough to operationalise these approaches in practice.

Catchments, Not Assets: A Structural Shift in Thinking

A consistent theme highlighted by Naiara and Noah was the move toward catchment-scale thinking; less about isolated assets, and more about interconnected systems.

This isn’t new theory. What’s changed is the urgency.

Flooding, pollution, and water quality challenges are increasingly being framed as system-level limitations of current approaches that cannot be solved through traditional grey infrastructure alone. Instead, the emphasis is on:

• Integrating land, water, and urban planning decisions
• Strengthening catchment partnerships
• Embedding long-term ecological stewardship

In practice, this signals a shift from capital delivery to system alignment, a transition many organisations are still stuck navigating.

Nature-Based Solutions: Stuck in Pilot Purgatory

As Naiara and Noah reflected, there was a clear reckoning with stagnation: nature-based solutions (NbS) have been “proven” for years, yet remain largely stuck in pilot mode.

The conversation has moved beyond validation. The barriers now are institutional:

• Planning frameworks that don’t prioritise NbS early enough
• Regulatory ambiguity around performance standards
• Funding models that favour traditional infrastructure
• Lack of long-term ownership models for maintenance and stewardship

There was strong agreement that mainstreaming NbS requires more than technical evidence; it demands structural change across policy, finance, and governance.

This aligns closely with initiatives like CaSTCo, a project that in part addresses embedding NbS into integrated delivery pathways through stewardship agreements and adaptive management.

Blue-Green Infrastructure: The Scaling Test Case

Blue-green infrastructure emerged, in Naiara and Noah’s view, as these solutions are already delivering measurable outcomes:

• Flood resilience
• Biodiversity restoration
• Enhanced public spaces

To that end, LIFE GREEN ADAPT is a project that aimed to increase the resilience of EU infrastructure to climate change through the implementation of blue-green infrastructure,  such as treatment wetlands and bio-technosoils, to manage flash flooding and run-off caused by heavy rainfall.

The challenge is not proof of concept. It’s replication at scale.

And that hinges on one critical lever: embedding these solutions into planning processes early, not retrofitting them later

Policy Signals Are Strengthening, But Not Yet Sufficient

The conference opened with remarks from Julia Buckley (MP), who outlined growing governmental pressure for stronger environmental accountability.

A draft bill proposing water reuse in all new housing developments stood out as a clear signal of intent.

This is the kind of intervention the sector has been calling for, but policy signals alone won’t unlock change unless they are also matched with:

• Delivery frameworks utilities can operationalise
• Funding mechanisms that de-risk adoption
• Regulatory clarity on performance and compliance

Otherwise, ambition risks outpacing execution.

Technology: Enabler, Not the Headline

While innovation featured prominently, particularly in areas such as resource recovery, low-carbon systems, and advanced monitoring, Naiara and Noah noted that technology was consistently positioned as an enabler rather than the solution itself.

The sector appears to be moving toward decision-centric frameworks, where technology supports better system-level choices rather than driving them.

It reflects a more developed position, and arguably a necessary one.

What This Means for the Sector

Stepping back, Naiara and Noah’s reflections point to three clear implications:

1. The bottleneck has moved

The constraint is no longer technical validations, but institutional alignment.

2. Scale requires standardization

Without clearer regulatory pathways and planning standards, NbS will remain slow to deploy.

3. The winners will be integrators

Organisations that can bridge policy, finance, and delivery, not just technology, will define future development of the water sector.

A Sector on the Edge of Acceleration

Despite the gaps, Naiara and Noah came away with a strong sense of optimism. There is growing alignment and momentum behind nature-based and integrated approaches within the water sector.

The question is no longer if they will scale, but how quickly? And what needs to change to enable that shift?

For the sector, this points to a clear priority: aligning policy, funding, and delivery models to move beyond pilots and into replicable, scalable solutions.