Silvestrum is advising the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, IUCN, through its Global Marine and Polar Programme, in the process of setting up a new facility to advance financially viable coastal climate resilience projects with clear ecosystem services benefits. The aim is to integrate nature based solutions (restoration of coastal wetlands, including mangroves) with modern data systems and marine technology as well as small renewable energy and clean water solutions to strengthen the investment case for integral coastal resilience management. The facility is intended to operate for projects in developing countries, especially small island developing states. The financing facility became operational at the end of 2018 under bluenaturalcapital.org. It’s managed by IUCN and is financed by the Government of Luxembourg, using international climate finance funding.

On August 13-14, 2019 Conservation International, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Blue Carbon Initiative hosted a two-day expert working session to develop guidelines for the integration of coastal blue carbon ecosystems into national actions, including Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. Silvestrum facilitated discussions and was one of the lead authors of guidelines prepared to support COP 25.

Given the growing interest to use blue bonds for conservation and climate purposes, IUCN – under its cooperation with the Government of Sweden – has commissioned Silvestrum, 4Climate, and Global Ocean Trust and to prepare a paper that analyzes the emerging field of blue bonds. It identifies key action items necessary to scale up blue bonds so that they can been used to effectively finance coastal resilience activities and that are based on natural solutions.

Soils play a central role in the world’s food security and sustainable development. Yet, soils are under stress, both from land management and climate change. One way to incentivize efforts to build soil carbon is through market mechanisms that provide revenue for reducing emissions from soil degradation and for sequestration. By taking the voluntary market as the lens, the project's final report informs the wider issue of the fate and utility of land sector carbon projects within the evolving political framework of the Paris Agreement.

Nature-based approaches are now components to a multi-billion dollar industry globally, but experience is concentrated in a few locations. To improve success rate of projects, and stimulate the flow of financial resources, this project documents best practice in linking restoration science with the practice of conserving and restoring coastal wetlands.

When peatlands are drained, the well-preserved carbon and nitrogen are released as greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and as nitrate to the surface water. Silvestrum is developing criteria and requirements for a peatland conservation and restoration standard, with a focus on temperate climate zones. The project provides a comparative analysis of the existing standards, in an attempt to establish best practices and to harmonize methodological approaches.