Many outdoor environments are currently designed without consider natural-based solutions to promote ecosystem services, such as water regulation and pollination. In addition, there is an increasing trend in the use of non-natural and fossil materials, such as artificial grass and fall protection surfaces. The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency wants to see nature-based solutions being integrated into the planning of outdoor environments to a greater extent and therefore announced funding to conduct an innovation competition. The innovation competition for nature-based solutions and ecosystem services in outdoor environments was run as a project by IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute (IVL) during the autumn of 2021. The competition’s implementation was a further development of the innovation competition on alternatives to artificial grass conducted by IVL in 2020–2021.

The project included the following activities:

• Planning, launch, and marketing plan. Development of project plan, communication, and marketing plan, supporting documents, etc.
• Expressions of interest, where the project received contact information from 40 interested parties. These were given access to the competition documents, an invitation toa digital Q&A session, and regular reminders until the registration ended.
• Full registration, where the contestants were asked to describe their contributions in words and pictures. A total of 16 entries signed up.
• Screening. All entries underwent an initial review, where relevance to the competition was ensured and entries were divided into competition classes based on development and market maturity. All entries passed the screening and were divided into two competition classes.
• Examination by an expert group based on the screening criteria set by the project. The expert group began by making an initial assessment of the contributions, which identified questions and ambiguities. All the innovators were then interviewed before a final assessment was conducted and winners were selected.
• Final seminar with presentation of the winners and inspiration part focused on clients. To increase the benefits of the project and attract the right target group, the focus was on inspiration for potential buyers. More than 200 people signed up and120 participated live.
• Evaluation of the project and the final event was conducted together with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, Formas and Vinnova. Lessons from collaboration were focus for the discussion.
• In Phase 2, Vinnova and Formas invite the winning innovators to a discussion on whether they can offer additional support for the innovators.

The winners of the competition were the entries Nyfiken på naturen (Curious About Nature) from Flora and Fauna, as well as Lekotoper (Playotopes) from Urbio and Örebromunicipality. Nyfiken på naturen is about creating educational gardens for children with special needs and Lekotoper is about creating green play environments that contribute with both play, learning, and ecosystem services.