NbS Triple Win Toolkit: Biodiversity Indicators in Context 28 The complexity of biodiversity, and the breadth of ecosystems and interventions that ICF-funded projects may cover means that there is no one-size-fits-all indicator that would effectively capture the contribution to biodiversity of all projects. This is apparent in the many and varied indicators already used in different frameworks28. Here, considerations have been prioritised for biodiversity indicators relevant to NbS and that can be aggregated across multiple projects to provide a programmatic summary. These would be relevant for the ICF context, including complementing the existing suite of KPIs. Below are recommendations for two indicators which could be developed further into headline indicators such as an ICF KPI. A ‘hectares under ecological restoration’ indicator focuses on the ecosystems component of biodiversity, and specifically a planned and measurable improvement of the quality of the ecosystem. A complementary indicator considers the ‘improvement in status of threatened species’, which can include quantifying the direct reduction in species’ extinction risk as a result of any habitat restoration, but is also based on the impact of a reductionin other pressures on species and therefore can also be used in isolation of habitat restoration activities. While the uptake of these would be a major step in representation of biodiversity as part of the triple win, the difficulty in determining indicators that would be appropriate to a range of interventionsshould be noted, and emphasis should also lie in selectingor developing indicators at the project level. Examplesof potential project-level indicators are therefore also given. Biodiversity indicator recommendations Recommended indicator 1: Hectares under ecological restoration as a result of funding (see also method guide) Rationale Ecosystems are defined by a set of attributes, including the species present, physical and chemical conditions, and processes such as nutrient cycling and hydrology. These ecosystem-level attributes are an integral part of biodiversity, both for the value that many people attach to near-natural systems (e.g. primary rainforests or intact coral reefs) and because disruption to ecosystems can increase extinction risk and reduce resilience to pressures such as periods of climate stress32. As such, biodiversity policies increasingly emphasise reversing ongoing degradation and restoring ecosystem attributes to more closely resemble the natural or ‘intact’ state. For example, the draft post-2020 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) includes a goal on increasing the integrity of natural ecosystems as well as targets for the area of degraded habitat restored. Complementing this, initiatives such as the Bonn Challenge to restore 350 million ha of forest by 2030 represent high profile actions towards international targets. Being able to measure whether funding has contributed to restoring key ecosystem attributes to a more intact state is therefore important in understanding biodiversity benefits: if programmes result in ecosystems in which the biodiversity and ecosystem processes are substantially closer to a natural state, the funding will have provided genuine benefits to biodiversity. This is very relevant in the context of NbS, which often involve an element of restoring ecosystem processes because such activities can also bring benefits to people.