By Rosimeiry Portela, Ph.D. - A-Track Project Lead
Approximately two years ago, a team of practitioners from 11 organizations came together to launch one of the most ambitious and complex 4-year-long EU Horizon projects: Accelerating TRAnsformation through Capitals Knowledge (A-Track). As it enters the second half of its implementation, reflecting on learnings about challenges, barriers and accomplishments from the first 2 years is essential to proceed and meet the overall project’s goal.
A-Track seeks to accelerate the integration of nature (natural capital) into decision-making across businesses, financial institutions, and governments. This goal is foundational not only to reach a Nature Positive future, but also to enhance the resilience and competitiveness of the European economy. One of the most significant features of this project is that, since its initial conception, A-Track is not inventing anything new, no new frameworks, tools or roadmaps, but rather it has been built on existing initiatives and best practices, and designed to develop, pilot, test, and scale innovations that contribute directly to the delivery of the European Green Deal.
The importance of science-based cohesion
Such a complex and articulated project requires a robust structure to ensure coherence, continuity and above all, strong science-based and technical reference. This is one of the project’s first major milestones: the Conceptual Framework, purposely designed to unify a diverse range of intersectoral and interdisciplinary activities. Created in alignment with the original A-Track proposal, the framework brings together relevant models, concepts, initiatives, and approaches to support nature-positive action across both public and private sectors.
It has served as the structural foundation for the project’s components and their interconnections and is regularly used to guide and strengthen delivery. Also, by fostering collaboration and identifying synergies across various elements, the framework helps prevent siloed implementation and enhances overall impact.
Learnings
A-Track’s outputs to date form a cohesive narrative of ambition and action, charting progress and offering a roadmap for those working toward a nature-positive future. Key areas of advancement include:
- Structuring and converting primary data into formats that support informed decision-making.
- Integrating biodiversity and ecosystem services into Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodologies.
- Identifying emerging nature-positive business models and archetypes.
- Identifying challenges and capturing lessons learned in scaling private finance that supports nature-positive outcomes.
These outputs underscore several critical insights for advancing nature-positive strategies. Chief among them is the importance of actionable data.
The strategic imperative of actionable data
Transforming raw nature-related information into decision-ready insights — using tools such as natural capital assessment and accounting (NCAA) and biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES) footprinting — is crucial for enabling informed decision-making across both public and private sectors.
Business engagement in such nature-positive approaches is gaining traction, though progress remains uneven. While interest continues to grow, the challenges many organizations still face are real: limited data access, insufficient internal capacity, and weak cross-functional collaboration. In the early stages of the project, we identified these key barriers for integrating nature into corporate decision-making. This foundational work has played a critical role in shaping capacity-building efforts, informing the Embed Nature initiative, and guiding the use and refinement of practical tools that help to convert knowledge into actionable insights for business and finance (for example, TNFD LEAP approach, ENCORE, Impact Accounting). Initiatives like A-Track’s Embed Nature and Onboard Nature are now helping to address these gaps by providing tailored support and practical tools that guide businesses toward effective integration.
In this scenario, finance has proven to be a powerful driver of change. While private capital holds significant potential to advance nature-positive outcomes, its effectiveness depends on access to reliable data, well-structured incentives, and supportive policy environments that encourage long-term investment.
Conclusion
Finally, collaboration, as often it is the case, has proven to be a powerful catalyst for impact. A-Track’s interdisciplinary and intersectoral approach has generated valuable synergies across project activities, enhancing both the relevance and reach of its outputs. This collaborative spirit remains essential for mainstreaming nature-positive practices across sectors and geographies.
As A-Track enters its next phase, its outputs will continue to form a cohesive roadmap for integrating nature into economic systems. Upcoming case studies, demonstrations, and pilot initiatives will illustrate how targeted interventions— anchored in robust data, active stakeholder engagement, and strategic alignment — can drive transformative change.