Briefing: Time for transformation – the opportunity for civil engineering to contribute to a nature-positive future

A nature-positive special issue of Civil Engineering is being published this year, and it could not be more timely. We are living in a time of biodiversity loss and we need to move into a new era of nature recovery – a nature-positive future. Working towards a nature-positive future can provide a multitude of benefits, including restoring lost biodiversity and mitigating and adapting to climate change. Globally, we need positive action at massive scale, and civil engineering projects are uniquely placed to contribute to the change we need. As a first step, we can take a similar approach to the early days of carbon dioxide management, applying our efforts to improve outcomes and helping work towards that nature-positive future. By adopting a nature-positive approach across civil engineering, we could contribute to restoring and enhancing biodiversity on this massive scale, while at the same time as addressing critical environmental risks.