Nature Positive: Cities’ Efforts to Advance the Transition

The report evaluates San Francisco's enabling environment for a nature-positive transition, identifying key barriers in governance, finance, and data management while highlighting successful nature-based solutions like the Alameda Watershed carbon assessment.

• San Francisco faces significant governance challenges due to the decentralized management of nature across various city levels, which leads to the neglect of some biodiverse areas and a lack of community engagement.
• The city lacks a formal, standalone biodiversity strategy or nature action plan, which, combined with the prioritization of social crises like affordable housing, impedes the delivery of tangible nature outcomes.
• Financing for nature-positive initiatives is currently ad-hoc and opportunistic, characterized by a reliance on limited government funds, high transaction costs for applications, and project-by-project funding that limits overall scale.
• Data management for nature is fragmented across city, state, and federal organizations, with non-standardized data sets that hinder collaboration, transparency, and the ability to measure progress against biodiversity targets.
• A carbon assessment of the 40,000-acre Alameda Watershed found that while the area stores 2.5 million tonnes of carbon as of 2022, even an aggressive carbon farming approach would only sequester 0.4% of San Francisco's 1990 GHG emissions, meaning the city cannot rely on these lands for its primary carbon sequestration strategy.
• The city has implemented several exemplary nature-positive projects, including the creation of stormwater wetlands on Yerba Buena Island and the India Basin Waterfront Park Project, which uses an Equitable Development Plan to ensure benefits reach historically underserved residents in Bayview Hunters Point.

APA

World Economic Forum (2025). Nature Positive: Cities’ Efforts to Advance the Transition. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Nature_Positive_Cities_Efforts_to_Advance_the_Transition_San_Francisco_2025.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Nature Positive: Cities’ Efforts to Advance the Transition. 2025. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Nature_Positive_Cities_Efforts_to_Advance_the_Transition_San_Francisco_2025.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Nature Positive: Cities’ Efforts to Advance the Transition |date=April 2025 |url=https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Nature_Positive_Cities_Efforts_to_Advance_the_Transition_San_Francisco_2025.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2025nature, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Nature Positive: Cities’ Efforts to Advance the Transition}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2025}, month = apr, url = {https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Nature_Positive_Cities_Efforts_to_Advance_the_Transition_San_Francisco_2025.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }