The Adaptation Economy: Where Climate Resilience Becomes Investable
About the session
Climate adaptation is usually discussed as something we need to fund. What if we also understood it as something people, businesses and governments increasingly need to buy?
Demand is already forming around cooling, flood resilience, disaster recovery, water infrastructure, resilient agriculture and supply-chain protection. These are not markets driven only by climate mandates. As the physical impacts of climate change intensify, protecting homes, businesses, infrastructure and livelihoods becomes a matter of economic self-interest.
Yet adaptation remains structurally underfunded. Why? And what needs to change to make more of it investable?
This session will look at the economics beneath the financing gap: from building and backing physical adaptation companies to making municipal utilities creditworthy enough to attract capital, and creating profitable models that allow smallholder farmers to adopt climate-smart and regenerative practices. The question is not simply how to mobilise more climate finance, but how to build the businesses, revenue models and financial structures that give capital somewhere durable to go.
Discussion Group Leaders
Casey Harrison is Chief Sustainability Officer at Nuru, advancing climate-resilient agriculture and locally led rural economic development.
Darren Clifford is Managing Partner at Adapt [us] Capital, accelerating investment and venture growth in solutions that strengthen climate adaptation and resilience.
What to expect
A commercially grounded conversation bringing together adaptation investors, founders, institutional capital, operators and practitioners working on the underlying economics of resilience.
Expect real examples of where demand is emerging, what makes adaptation difficult to finance, and how different business and financing models can move solutions beyond pilots.
Who this is for
This session is for investors, allocators, founders, climate finance leaders, infrastructure practitioners, philanthropists and operators interested in adaptation as an emerging market and in the financial structures needed to take resilience solutions to scale.
What you will get out of it
A clearer picture of where commercial demand for climate adaptation is already emerging
Insights into why adaptation remains underfunded despite increasingly strong economics
Examples of business and financing models that can make resilience investable
Perspectives spanning adaptation companies, utilities, infrastructure and climate-smart agriculture
Connections with investors, founders and operators building the adaptation economy