Financing adaptation and resilience, from data to measurable impact
Adaptation finance raises questions that go well beyond bankability: which physical risk data to trust, how to apply adaptation taxonomies, where the investment opportunities are, and how to measure impact and financial value. We help DFIs, MDBs, banks, insurers and investors answer each of them.
A young market with open methodological questions
Physical climate risk data varies widely across providers. Adaptation taxonomies are emerging but hard to apply. Pipelines stall before investment committee. Impact is measured inconsistently, and there is no common methodology yet for the financial value of resilience. Institutions need practical answers now, while market standards develop.
Experience across the whole value chain
Our team has built an adaptation community of practice for financial institutions, an adaptation taxonomy playbook and an impact measurement toolkit, and contributes to industry work on measuring the financial value of resilience.
Engagement formats
Pipeline Staircase Review
4–6 weeks. Every project placed on the Bankability Staircase, with the blocking question and next action for each.
Structuring Options Paper
4–6 weeks. Revenue and risk-allocation options for one to three priority projects, to term-sheet level.
Physical Risk Data Review
An independent review of the physical climate risk data and models you use or plan to buy, with fitness-for-purpose findings.
Taxonomy & Opportunity Screening
Application of adaptation taxonomies to your portfolio or pipeline, and identification of investment opportunities by sector and region.
Impact Measurement Framework
Indicators, baselines and reporting for adaptation and resilience outcomes, building on our impact measurement toolkit.
Outcomes clients can point to
- Confidence in the physical risk data behind your decisions
- Clear application of adaptation taxonomies and a mapped set of opportunities
- Pipelines with specific structuring actions rather than a generic funding gap
- Impact and value evidence that funders, boards and investors can follow
How we approach adaptation & resilience finance
Five building blocks of adaptation finance
Every engagement addresses one or more of five building blocks. Together they take an institution from understanding physical risk to evidencing the value of resilience.
- 01Physical risk data
Selecting, validating and using physical climate risk data, building on our climate risk expertise and public sources such as NGFS, Copernicus and WRI Aqueduct.
- 02Taxonomies and opportunities
Applying adaptation taxonomies and screening portfolios and markets for adaptation and resilience investment opportunities.
- 03Bankability
Moving projects up the Bankability Staircase: from need to project, revenue logic, risk allocation and investable asset.
- 04Impact measurement
Indicators and frameworks that evidence what adaptation investment delivers, to the standard funders and boards expect.
- 05Financial value of resilience
An initial approach using established proxies, such as avoided losses and cost-benefit ratios, while industry methodologies develop.
There is no common methodology yet for the financial value of resilience. We use transparent proxies today and contribute to the work on a shared standard.
The Bankability Staircase
Five steps between a resilience need and an investable asset. Answer the questions in order: a project stands on the last step where every answer is yes, and the instrument menu shows what moves it one step further.
- Step 1Need
A resilience gap is identified, but no defined intervention exists.
- Step 2Project
An intervention is specified and costed, but there is no model for who pays and why.
- Step 3Revenue
Value is quantified and at least one mechanism turns it into cash flow: user fees, availability payments, avoided-loss sharing, insurance-linked value or fiscal savings capture.
- Step 4Risk allocation
Risks sit with those best able to hold them: blended tranches, guarantees, first-loss capital, parametric insurance.
- Step 5Bankable asset
An investment committee can diligence the structure with standard documentation, ticket and tenor fit investor mandates, and a second transaction can reuse it.
Adaptation is short of bankable projects, not only of capital. Most pipelines stall between Project and Revenue.
Test our framework on your own institution
Bankability Staircase project diagnostic
This expertise in our sector practices
Sustainable Investment
Portfolio strategy, products and stewardship for asset managers and asset owners.
Explore the practiceSustainable Insurance
Underwriting, investing and product design for an insurance industry on the front line of climate and nature loss.
Explore the practiceSustainable Banking
Credit, capital and client strategy for banks managing climate and nature risk while financing the transition.
Explore the practiceWhich building block is holding you back?
Bring us one question, one project or one portfolio. We will tell you where to start.