IGNITION project – Nature-based Solutions to the Climate Emergency
Salford, Greater Manchester
Our Story
Imagine a greener Greater Manchester. A place that works with nature and where the urban landscape is filled with rain gardens, street trees and green roofs, walls and spaces.
Our ground-breaking project, IGNITION aims to do just this by developing innovative financing solutions for investment in Greater Manchester’s green infrastructure. Having started the project back in 2019, the £4 million, EU-funded project is well on its way to providing the tools needed to increase the use of nature-based solutions (NBS) in Greater Manchester.
Nature-based Solutions (NBS), such as rain gardens, street trees, green roofs and walls and parks and green spaces, provide natural ways to cope with the extreme effects of climate change such as flooding events and overheating in urban areas. They can also help to tackle socio-environmental challenges relating to air quality, biodiversity and human health and wellbeing.
The Challenge
The multiple benefits of NBS are increasingly well documented, but currently rely heavily on statutory or philanthropic funding for implementation. The IGNITION partnership set out to build confidence in the benefits of NBS and understand how these could be translated into financial savings or returns. The ultimate aim of the project is to attract investment to deliver NBS projects at the scale needed to ensure the climate resilience of our city region.
Our Solution
The IGNITION project, backed by the EU’s Urban Innovation Actions (UIA) initiative, brings together 12 partners from local government, universities, NGOs and business.
The IGNITION project will, provide an assessment of the amount of greenspace already within Greater Manchester (GM) to provide a baseline against which to measure an increase in urban greenspace, whilst conducting research into the multiple benefits of different types of NBS to inform the development of potential innovative financing models.
In addition to developing a feasibility study that identifies reductions in wastewater charging through the installation of sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) and we will establish a Living Lab at the University of Salford that would be the first of its kind to study the functionality of combined systems of NBS.