Natural asset management purports to provide cost-effective, reliable services to local governments, as well as many co-benefits based on healthy, connected and biodiverse ecosystems. But is it really doing that? And how do we find out? 

Canadian local governments are seeking new strategies to deliver their core services in financially and environmentally sustainable ways, including implementing municipal asset management as a key tool to manage infrastructure. Municipalities are increasingly recognizing that natural assets2 such as aquifers, forests, streams and foreshores can provide equivalent or better services to many engineered assets. Municipal natural asset management offers a sustainable solution to the multifaceted problems of supplying municipal services in the face of aging infrastructure, urban growth, and declining budgets. As this approach is being implemented in a growing number of Canadian municipalities, it is important to support the development of best practices and an understanding of how to facilitate widespread adoption of municipal natural asset management.

This summary report highlights the factors affecting municipal natural asset management from a planning perspective, including the role of urban planners, and the top five barriers and opportunities in professional planning norms and standards that may affect the refinement, replication, and scaling up of municipal natural asset management projects.