How to Scale Natural Asset Management: Lessons from Five Provinces

NAI’s newest report lays out provincial enablers to help natural infrastructure take root in Canada 

Natural infrastructure can help communities build climate resilience and support cost-effective solutions to Canada’s hazardous infrastructure gap. Although there is strong evidence and growing support in favour of natural infrastructure, it has yet to break into the mainstream.

Natural infrastructure won’t scale on its own.  As IISD’s State of Play Report for Natural Infrastructure in the Canadian Prairies states, for natural infrastructure to move from novel to normal, it has to be enabled by policy and championed by every level of government. 

When nature isn’t held up as a legitimate and expected way to deliver infrastructure services, it remains as a “nice to have”, not because anyone rejected it, but because no one was prompted to consider it in the first place.

Enabling natural asset management as a way to scale nature-based solutions

From our analysis across five provinces, enabling NAM relies on a combination of:

1. Explicit policy signals that name natural assets and natural infrastructure as a legitimate, expected part of infrastructure planning, so they’re considered by default rather than by exception.

2. Dedicated funding that makes natural asset solutions clearly eligible, giving local governments the confidence to invest.

3. Strong networks of non-profits, professional associations, and conservation/watershed organizations that build capacity, share tools, and support communities, especially smaller ones, through the process.

We examined progress in British Columbia and Ontario— two provinces that stand out for in terms of progress in natural asset management—and looked at good practices emerging across the Prairies. Our goal is to open this discussion to see which good practices could be borrowed or strengthened to scale up NAM in the Prairies and beyond. 

What we found across five provinces

What was clear was that provincial leadership and practitioner networks combined are strong predictors of NAM adoption. When policy or funding (ideally both) line up with a base of organizations supporting its adoption, NAM can thrive. When they don’t, the weight of driving NAM progress rests solely on local champions, limiting their ability to scale. 

British Columbia: Ensures their network gets funding

Unsurprisingly, BC—home to Gibsons, the “first mover” on NAM in Canada and NAI’s incubator—has several municipalities, as well as First Nations, taking on NAM with support from a network of organizations like Asset Management BC and Engineers and Geoscientists of BC. The Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs and the Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions have actively championed NAM by funding research and NAM implementation, resulting in a growing acceptance of NAM as part of sustainable infrastructure planning.

BC is also the only province that explicitly includes natural assets as eligible in its major provincial–federal bilateral infrastructure funding programs, including the Canada Community Building Fund. That clarity sends a powerful signal that nature is infrastructure, and gives local governments the confidence to invest.

Ontario: Strongest regulatory driver alongside a robust network

Ontario’s O. Reg. 588/17 asset management regulation is the most significant regulatory driver for natural asset management in Canada; it explicitly requires green infrastructure to be included in municipal asset management plans. 

Ontario also benefits from a robust NAM practitioner network comprising the Greenbelt Foundation, AMONTario, the Municipal Finance Officers’ Association, and the province’s data-rich Conservation Authorities. These organizations provide support in the form of project grants, technical training, and relevant expertise that has proven to be an important catalyst for NAM across Ontario as they lack the direct funding signals that BC has at the provincial level.

According to a 2025 analysis by AMO, 10% of municipalities in Ontario (45 municipalities) have incorporated green infrastructure into their asset management plans to some degree (NAI 2026, p.14).

Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba: Champions and watershed agencies would benefit from provincial leadership

All three provinces largely lack the explicit policy direction and dedicated funding signals that exist in BC and Ontario. The Prairies also have fewer large cities with the same capacity as Ontario, meaning there are fewer leaders who can lead the way on NAM adoption.

That said, there are strong NAM leaders dotted across the region—we know because we’ve worked with them. Leading local governments like Okotoks, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, and Selkirk have advanced inventories, ecosystem service valuations, urban forest plans, and naturalization projects, often driven by their own initiative with support from strong watershed agencies and organizations like IISD. Alberta’s Watershed Planning and Advisory Councils, Saskatchewan’s Meewasin Valley Authority, and Manitoba’s Watershed Districts have all helped carry NAM forward at the watershed scale.

In the absence of provincial policy and funding signals, watershed agencies and local leaders in the Prairies have to do the heavy lifting in terms of progressing NAM. 

Federal policy: Supporting but not directive

While federal programs do support nature as infrastructure and provide some opportunities (through the Natural Infrastructure Fund, FCM’s Green Municipal Fund, the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund, and the new Build Communities Strong Fund, for example), they do not have programs that require natural assets to be inventoried, valued, or managed. And for the core federal infrastructure funds that flow money through the provinces, NAM uptake depends largely on the province’s eligibility criteria and the presence of capacity-building organizations. 

How we can scale natural asset management across Canada

Provinces that invest in clear policy signals, dedicated funding for green infrastructure and natural assets, and capacity-building networks are seeing faster, more sustained progress on NAM. The good practices already exist; we just need to build on them.

Our report lists a set of practical recommendations to scale NAM in the Prairies (and beyond):

• Make natural infrastructure explicitly eligible in federal–provincial bilateral funding agreements and provincial infrastructure programs — this is something that any province can take on, while the federal government can encourage them along.
• Tie natural infrastructure funding to NAM progress by requiring applicants to demonstrate that foundations like natural asset inventories, strategies, or plans are in place, and that natural infrastructure solutions were considered at the planning stage.
• Expand dedicated federal natural infrastructure funding until it becomes mainstream.
• Strengthen capacity-building, with training for senior municipal decision makers support for communities of practice, and shared, standardized tools for valuation, condition assessment, and risk analysis.
• Provide targeted support for small and rural municipalities, including direct technical assistance, templates and standardized methods, and access to watershed-scale natural asset data.

Read the full report: Enabling Natural Asset Management Progress: Lessons from Five Canadian Provinces.

This report is intended to spur discussion on how to scale up natural infrastructure at the Natural Solutions for Water Security Policy Forum, hosted by IISD and the Climate Risk Institute on June 2–3, 2026.