Nature-based Solutions 11
The Biomedical Scientific Enterprise: A System Ripe for Disruption.
The Biomedical Scientific Enterprise refers to the entangled network of corporations, hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical giants, and technology firms that dominate modern healthcare delivery—prioritizing profit, procedures, and pharmaceuticals over prevention and population health and well-being.
Despite its technological sophistication, the Enterprise has left us with:
Poorer quality and safety of care.
Barriers to access into appropriate healthcare service delivery.
Rising healthcare costs and medical debt
Widening health disparities in marginalized communities
Provider burnout and workforce shortages
Unsustainable environmental impacts
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed these systemic failures—and opened the door for bold reimagination.
How NbS Can Reshape the Healthcare Sector.
Nature-based Solutions challenge the dominant narrative of health as a product to be consumed. Instead, they frame health as a relational and ecosystem process, shaped by our environments, communities, and individual choices.
Here’s how NbS could transform healthcare delivery:
1. Re-centering Disease Prevention and Public Health.
NbS shift the focus from disease treatment to health creation. Green spaces promote physical activity, reduce stress, and lower risks for developing chronic diseases. These are low-cost, high-impact interventions that reduce dependence on pharmaceuticals and reactive models of care.
2. Addressing Mental Health at Scale.
With rates of depression, anxiety, and burnout rising worldwide, NbS offer non-pharmacological approaches to healing the whole person. Time in nature improves mood, reduces cortisol levels, and fosters social cohesion—outcomes traditional healthcare systems often struggle to deliver sustainably.
3. Healing the Healers.
Biophilic environments in hospitals and clinics reduce stress among healthcare providers, lower turnover rates, and enhance decision-making. Nature-accessible workplaces support well-being in an overstretched and undervalued healthcare workforce.
4. Environmental Co-Benefits.
The healthcare sector is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and biomedical waste. NbS, such as green roofs, passive cooling, and on-site gardens, reduce the carbon footprint of facilities while also enhancing the quality of patient care and resilience to climate impacts.
5. Health Equity and Community Empowerment.
NbS can be community-designed and led, increasing public trust and tailoring interventions to local needs. In historically marginalized communities, green infrastructure can repair environmental injustice and expand access to safe, healing spaces.
From Resistance to Revolution.
Unsurprisingly, the integration of NbS into healthcare faces systemic resistance. The Biomedical Scientific Enterprise thrives on volume of care delivered to patients, not value. But emerging trends signal that change is not only possible—it’s already happening:
In the UK, “green social prescribing” is now part of national healthcare.
In Japan and South Korea, forest bathing and therapeutic parks are recognized treatments.
In the U.S., hospital systems are rethinking landscapes as therapeutic assets, and insurers are exploring nature-based models of care.
Policy shifts, payment innovation, and grassroots movements are converging to disrupt the status quo. The path forward requires:
Policy alignment with climate and health goals
Investment in green infrastructure and preventive care
Clinician education on nature-based interventions
Community co-creation of NbS tailored to place-based needs
Conclusion: A Radical, Restorative Vision.
Nature-based Solutions offer more than environmental benefit—they are a revolutionary force for healing. By addressing the root causes of illness, restoring connections to nature, and challenging the market-driven logic of the Biomedical Scientific Enterprise, NbS invite us to imagine global healthcare systems that are both effective and regenerative.
This is best practice for essential healthcare service delivery as it should be: rooted in quality, equity, resilience, community, and sustainable ecological/environmental wisdom.
