Resilience Recalibrated:
Market Signals in the Age of Climate Consequence

You are a unique type of entity. One that has a unique arrangement with the City of New York. You are a non-profit, but government controlled and you have a contract with New York City that defines your overall vision and major projects. 

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What can you tell us about how the City of New York is thinking about climate adaptation and resilience? And how is that thinking reflected in the approach you apply to the Climate Solutions Piloting Program?

New York City has been a leader on climate action since the first PlaNYC was published on Earth Day on April 22, 2007. The City of New York is working to close the gap on the disproportionate impacts of climate change that lead to hundreds of preventable deaths every year through planning and investments that are already resulting in cleaner air, better mobility, safer homes, and growing green jobs and businesses – a future that is more equitable, healthy, and resilient in the face of increasing flood and heat risks. 

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As part of this decades-long effort, the Trust for Governors Island and the New York City Mayor’s Office announced a vision to create the Center for Climate Solutions, a community to accelerate climate solutions for cities on Governors Island. This work supports the research, development, and demonstration of equitable climate solutions for New York City that can be scaled and applied globally.

Today, Governors Island represents a living lab for the everyday conditions of New York City and other dense urban environments that need to become both more sustainable and resilient. The Trust’s Climate Piloting Program, launched in 2023, offers opportunities for innovators to test early-stage climate products and services on Governors Island; collect data in a real-world environment; and engage with funders, investors, customers, and Island visitors. Selected teams are developing products and services that address the uneven landscape of climate impacts in cities and that can retrofit or improve existing buildings, infrastructure, transportation, waste management systems, and other critical urban services in New York City and other cities.

Governors Island serves as a testbed for urban climate solutions, including nature-based solutions (NbS). How were the projects selected, and how are they addressing real-world conditions in New York City?

Several teams are piloting nature-based solutions on Governors Island in 2025 that will restore habitat, capture environmental pollution, and green our city. 

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All selected projects must have a clear, compelling proposal that meets certain requirements—for instance, they must be temporary; they must meaningfully address a problem, inequity, or critical barrier in climate; their proposal should illustrate a sound methodology and present good potential to accelerate the inclusive blue/green economy and workforce in NYC; and they should support a critical milestone in product or service development and deployment, such as solutions validation, beta testing, and data collection; among other criteria. Importantly, the projects also must make sense for Governors Island and have the potential to scale in New York City and other dense urban environments. Priority is given to projects that can make use of our unique asset base, including a 2.2-mile waterfront, 43-acre climate-resilient park, 7 miles of car-free streets, 50+ historic buildings, sewer and water infrastructure, and more.

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Project spotlights include: 

• Seaweed City – Urban seaweed aquaculture nonprofit with a mission to restore our marine ecosystems, clean our water, and promote community investment in the New York City estuary. Their work began in Newtown Creek, a superfund site in Brooklyn, where they demonstrated that sugar kelp can grow in adverse urban conditions while capturing pollutants. 
• Just Ecocities / Biohabitats – Piloting the Tidal Planter, a modular onshore wetland system inspired by living shorelines that is designed to improve water quality, expand habitat, and engage communities. Their research began in Flushing, Queens, through volunteering with a local community group, and a goal to re-establish salt marsh habitat in urban waterfronts that are already protected by sea walls, bulkheads, and riprap.
• Plantaer – A living concrete façade demonstrating how their new material can help buildings and infrastructure better adapt to the urban heat island effect and improve air quality. Plantaer is committed to developing biocompatible materials for the built environment. 

Looking ahead 15 years, how do you see the role of non-profit, climate adaptation-focused test labs, like yours, evolving, especially in cities like New York, that are already built out? 

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And what kinds of changes and trends do you anticipate in the broader climate adaptation investment and innovation landscapes?

Governors Island offers an open and flexible platform for companies to test their products and services on our physical site as they grow their business. The Trust’s annual Climate Solutions Challenge is announced each fall. The Challenge awards no-fee access to a project site on Governors Island, along with a $10,000 prize and access to supplemental grants to support project design and deployment, generally not to exceed an additional $20,000. A year-round general application is available to self-funded teams. Companies may also access technical support and engage with key stakeholders and funders through showcases and other events.

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Innovation with an open spirit and transparency can go a long way to make better products and services to support sustainable, resilient, and equitable urban communities. One hallmark of piloting on Governors Island is that products and services can undergo testing and de-risking in a beloved public place. Companies gain exposure to the Trust’s cross-sectoral network of government, industry, academic, and community partners alongside the Island’s growing audience of nearly one million annual visitors, including from all five New York City boroughs and around the world. Previous participants have made tremendous progress during their time in the program, including bringing technology from the lab into an operational environment, growing their teams, accessing capital and grant opportunities, and developing relationships with suppliers, customers, and more.

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Looking ahead, adaptation is on the rise. Climate impacts are here, and cities urgently need solutions today. As the market catches up, real-world testbeds like Governors Island are crucial for validating new products and services for cities and creating learning opportunities, not only for founders and their teams, but also the regulators, business owners, workers, and residents that comprise their future markets. 

Venture capital (VC) is just one part of the climate capital stack. As climate startups scale and begin building physical infrastructure and commercial facilities, VC funding becomes a less feasible option for supporting next levels of growth. In 2025, where is venture capital making the biggest impact in climate adaptation, and where is it falling short?

Over the past decade, I've worked closely with 75+ startups across stages, with the last five years focused on climate mitigation and adaptation solutions. Leading innovation at Elemental Impact has given me a front-row seat to how this challenge is playing out.

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Venture capital remains crucial for climate adaptation, particularly in three areas: funding early R&D when founders are still proving their technology works, providing bridge capital when timelines inevitably shift, and accelerating growth for companies that find product-market fit.

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But here's where things break down - what we at Elemental Impact call the "Scale Gap." Unlike traditional startups, climate companies hit a critical juncture when they are ready to build their first commercial facilities within the $10-40M range. We have quantified this gap at about $150 billion, which is staggering when you consider what's at stake.

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I recently sat with an agtech founder whose technology has had successful pilots and a list of excited customers. Yet when seeking financing for their first commercial facility, VCs stepped back saying "This looks like it should be project finance," while project financiers said, "Come back after you have built a few facilities." Classic catch-22.

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That's why at Elemental, we are creating bridges to bankability for these critical technologies. Our approach combines catalytic capital with project expertise, local partnerships, and investor mobilisation. The results speak for themselves: compared to similar companies, those in our portfolio are 2.5x more likely to survive from early to late commercial stages.

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Climate adaptation technologies deliver tangible benefits - protecting communities from a wide range of climate-induced disasters. They are simply too important to let stall at this critical juncture.

As climate tech companies enter a capital-intensive maturation phase, how can investors, particularly later-stage funds and debt providers, effectively step in to fill the financing gap left by traditional VCs to ensure these critical projects scale and succeed?

Climate tech hardware demands a different playbook than software startups, especially when building physical infrastructure.

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For later-stage funds and debt providers to effectively fill the financing gap, they need to understand that each project requires building a customised capital stack. Often, some form of catalytic capital is needed to de-risk the project, whether through concessionary returns, flexible financial covenants, or technical assistance, which then helps mobilise investment from these traditional capital sources.

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What's critically missing today is collaborative financing. Investors need to abandon the competitive, siloed approach that works for traditional tech and instead work in concert to build complete financing solutions. This means project financiers talking to venture investors, banks coordinating with impact funds, and everyone sharing due diligence to reduce transaction costs.

• At Elemental, we have seen four critical factors that enable successful financing transitions:
  
  • First, deploy catalytic capital structured specifically for project development. We created the Development SAFE (D-SAFE) as non-dilutive funding for pre-construction activities that traditional investors typically won't touch. This initial de-risking creates opportunities for later-stage investors to enter with more confidence.
  • Second, bring hands-on project expertise. In our portfolio survey, 71% of companies cited specialised knowledge in areas like permitting and stakeholder engagement as critical to success. Later-stage investors can partner with organisations that provide this expertise or develop it internally.
  • Third, facilitate local partnerships. One founder I worked with spent months building relationships with community organisations before breaking ground - it paid dividends throughout development. Later-stage investors should prioritise projects with strong local support.
  • Finally, be willing to participate in blended capital structures. The most successful projects often involve a mix of catalytic funding, venture equity, project finance, and specialised debt instruments. Later-stage investors need flexibility to participate in these innovative arrangements rather than waiting for "perfect" deals that simply don't exist at this stage.

What is catalytic capital, and how would you define its role in the adaptation-focused climate tech investing space? Can you share examples from your own portfolio where catalytic capital has unlocked transformative private investment in scalable, high-impact adaptation solutions?

Catalytic capital is money willing to go where other money won't - at least not yet. It takes more risk and/or accepts lower returns, often to mobilise private capital and prove models that can eventually attract mainstream investment.

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At Elemental Impact, our nonprofit structure enables us to invest where traditional capital markets won't. The results speak for themselves: for every dollar we have invested, our companies have raised an additional $100B in follow-on funding.

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Nitricity exemplifies this impact. When building their first commercial facility producing decentralised, low-emissions nitrogen fertiliser in California (crucial for onshoring production and supporting food security), we provided D-SAFE investments for critical pre-development activities, paired with hands-on technical assistance.

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The result? Our catalytic involvement helped them secure a loan extension from their commercial lender, unlock tax credits, and attract two additional investors. Without that initial push, this project likely would have stalled at the blueprint stage.

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These aren't just feel-good stories - they are proof that strategic catalytic capital can build critical climate infrastructure while creating sustainable financing pathways for the future.

In the context of your work in regenerative agriculture, how do you distinguish between 'adaptation' and 'resilience', and how do you apply each of these concepts in your investment decisions?

“Adaptation” is about the need to change, over the short and long term, to our shifting climate through a new way of daily living and functioning as a society. “Resilience” is more about our systems’ ability to withstand various shocks as time-bound events, and then quickly rebuild. Both of these framings, which are inherently interrelated, are key to any investment decision we make, particularly those working within natural systems.

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When it comes to agriculture, adaptation solutions encompass everything from crop selection and breeding to new forms of propagation, water conservation, and farmworker safety. Frankly, it applies to almost everything in agriculture. While resilience is where regenerative agriculture really sits, building soils’ ability to withstand increasing drought, heat, and temperature extremes, along with the related rise in crop diseases and pests. Solutions that help enable the integration of regenerative practices on farms build a more resilient food supply chain, and one that can handle the inevitable shocks ahead.

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Agriculture needs both immediate strengthening and long-term transformation. By supporting technologies across this spectrum, we are building the comprehensive toolkit farmers need to thrive in increasingly unpredictable conditions.

How does capital flow differ between investments in adaptive agriculture and those focused specifically on agricultural resilience, such as preserving soil health and crop viability, versus adapting through measures like crop relocation or genetic modification?

When it comes to capital flow in agriculture, I've witnessed a striking imbalance firsthand. Complex biotechnology solutions - particularly genetic modification - consistently attract significantly more venture funding than regenerative approaches focused on soil health and ecosystem resilience.

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This disparity isn't surprising when you understand investor psychology. Biotech offers familiar scaling patterns and strong IP protection. Meanwhile, regenerative solutions involve complex biological systems, longer validation periods, and fewer obvious IP moats, despite their tremendous potential for climate resilience.

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The regenerative agriculture movement faces a significant financing gap, and mobilising catalytic capital across crop production and distribution is pivotal to building the resilient food system we need. At Elemental, we are addressing this through innovative financing tools and strategic partnerships that help connect these critical solutions to appropriate capital sources before it's too late.

How do you differentiate between investments in climate adaptation and those in climate resilience? And could you also speak to the market size, growth trajectory, competitive landscape, and profitability potential of each of these markets?

Lightsmith believes climate resilience is an “unavoidable opportunity” for growth investment.  According to the IPCC, because of historical greenhouse gas emissions, “[s]ome future changes are now unavoidable and/or irreversible.”  In fact, the range of global warming between now and 2030 is essentially fixed, and there is only a modest temperature range that can be changed by rapid decarbonization between 2030 and 2040.  As a result, you actually should have more conviction and certainty as an investor about the trajectory of climate change than about the direction or range of inflation, interest rates, tariffs, international trade, geopolitics, artificial intelligence, consumer behavior, or many other factors.  Demand for technologies and solutions that can help companies, communities, governments, and individuals understand and manage these unavoidable future changes will increase as a response to physics and time.  The unavoidable opportunity is to invest in technologies and solutions that can help understand and manage the risk and impact, and complexity increased by climate change over the next five to fifteen years and beyond.

First and foremost, we need to recognize that climate change is a humanitarian tragedy and a crisis for biodiversity.  People are already being impacted through floods, fires, storms, and the knock-on effects of climate change.  

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That being said, there is also an investment opportunity – an unavoidable opportunity – to scale up the technologies and solutions that can help us assess and manage the ongoing risks and impacts from climate change – to water, to agriculture, to energy reliability, to infrastructure, to supply chains, to human health, and many other parts of society and the economy.

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Lightsmith identifies technology and solutions in adaptation and climate resilience by examining the climate risks and impacts in specific regions and timescales and then finding companies whose technologies and solutions can help assess or manage those risks and impacts.  Working with the Global Adaptation and Resilience Investment working group (GARI), we helped develop the Climate Resilience Investment Solutions Principles (CRISP), which created an expert peer-reviewed framework for identifying adaptation and climate resilience companies.  Climate resilience technically refers to technologies and solutions that help systems respond to climate risks and impacts, while adaptation is sometimes considered a broader term that incorporates going beyond responding to or recovering from climate shocks.  At Lightsmith, we want to invest in any technology or solution that can help understand, manage, or even transcend the increasing complexity and risk accelerated by climate change.  Having launched the first private investment fund for adaptation and climate resilience, Lightsmith believes there is an unavoidable opportunity for growth investment in climate resilience solutions.

According to the United Nations, global demand for climate adaptation and resilience (A&R) investments is projected to reach between $500 billion and $1.3 trillion annually by 2030. 

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Yet historically, investors have struggled to gain traction in this space. What has shifted to make climate A&R more investable today, and what emerging dynamics are unlocking clearer, more actionable opportunities for investors?

Investors are now increasingly recognising that climate resilience and adaptation is an immediate, concrete, and growing investment opportunity.  For example, BCG and Temasek as well as GIC and Bain recently released reports that estimate the investment opportunity in adaptation and climate resilience in the trillions of dollars.  Lightsmith believes that the unfortunate reality of climate change is now upon us and is growing clearer and more tangible all the time.  In 2018, one California utility’s wildfire risk management annual budget was just over $500 million.  Another California utility filed for bankruptcy that year because of wildfires exacerbated by climate change.  Today, the first California utility’s wildfire management plan calls for over $6 billion per year - much of which will be focused on scaling up technologies and solutions to the growing risk and impact of climate change.

In our view, investors will have to answer three and half questions when considering investments in adaptation and climate resilience:

First: When?  When is climate change relevant to investments?  The answer is now.  Whether it was caused by Cape Town’s near Day Zero event where the entire city almost ran out of drinking water in 2018, or the $40 billion in wildfire damage to Los Angeles in January 2025, investors have woken up to the reality that climate change impact is here now. Now and for the next five to fifteen years and beyond, at an accelerating and unavoidable rate.

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Second: What is the downside? Once investors know climate change is an issue now, they want to know what the risk is to their investments.  Climate change changes existing risks and impacts to all investments, whether real estate or power utilities, or supply chains.  Investors will first focus on understanding and then mitigating the risk to their investments.

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Third: What is the opportunity to address that downside? Once investors assess the downside risk, they start to wonder what is the opportunity to deal with that risk and impact.  Is there an opportunity to invest in tools to understand and manage the risks and impacts of climate change to investments?  Are there other opportunities created by these different risks and impacts?

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Third-and-a-half: What is the opportunity beyond addressing the downside?  Once investors realize there is value in investing in addressing the downside, the next question is, what is the upside beyond simply managing the impact of climate change?  Is there value in new technologies, business models, and strategies that transcend the risk, impact, and complexity created by climate change?  Is there a way to secure a competitive advantage by being able to succeed in the face of increasing complexity and risk?

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Lightsmith believes that investors have now answered the first question and are now moving through questions two and three.  Investors now know that climate change is a today risk and a financial risk.  Investors are beginning to recognise that climate change is an inevitably increasing risk -  and an unavoidable opportunity to invest in understanding and managing that risk.

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To be clear, Lightsmith and other investors are not in favor of climate change. We all should do as much as we can to decarbonise and mitigate the trajectory of climate change.  Investors are also not in favor of disease and risks to human health, and are in favor of reducing their causes as much as possible.  But investors recognise that there is an attractive investment opportunity in healthcare, and society is better off because of those investments in healthcare technologies. Similarly, there is an attractive and important investment opportunity in resilience and adaptation solutions to climate change.

The 2023 IPCC Synthesis Report projects that, under current policies, global warming is likely to reach between 2.5°C and 3.5°C by 2100, with a central estimate of approximately 2.7 – 3.0°C.

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How has this projection been received by the investment community, particularly those focused on climate adaptation and resilience?

Investors now realise that reality is catching up to the projections of the climate science community.  Long-term asset owners and investors have recognised that the climate change challenge is here and that it is an accelerating risk and impact to society, the economy, and investments. 

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Most investors have an investment time horizon well within the next five to fifteen years.  It is now essential for investors to address the immediate risks and impacts and opportunities created by climate change.  Investors are also beginning to consider how that unavoidable trajectory should inform long-term investment strategy and asset allocation.

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Lightsmith sees an increasing number of attractive investment opportunities in climate resilience and adaptation.

As institutions like Morgan Stanley are now assessing climate risks using baseline scenarios of 2.7°C to over 3°C of warming by 2100, what are the implications for capital allocation, particularly in the context of climate adaptation and resilience investments?

Adaptation and climate resilience today receive less than five percent of tracked climate investment worldwide.  Most companies do not call their technologies and solutions climate resilience or adaptation or “climate change” anything; they support power reliability, business continuity, precision agriculture, advanced supply chain management, geospatial information, vegetation management.  As investors recognise that climate change is a clear and present financial risk, they should consider how they express that investment belief in capital allocation and investment strategies.  Investors can assess and address the growing physical risk and impact to existing investments. Investors can also begin to allocate capital to investments in climate resilience and adaptation.  

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Put another way, unless an investor is affirmatively evaluating their investments for climate risk and allocating capital to climate resilience, that investor is acting as if the delta is zero - that climate change is not and will not affect the value of investments, both current and future.  Science and experience clearly tell us: The delta is not zero. Investors have the unavoidable opportunity to invest around the unfolding reality of climate change.  The question is what will we do with that unavoidable opportunity: what investments will we make, what technologies will we back, what choices will we take as the future inevitably arrives.

Looking ahead over the next 5 to 15 years, how do you envision your investment strategy evolving, and what key demand drivers will you be monitoring to identify and capture emerging opportunities?

Lightsmith invests in companies with existing technologies and solutions that help assess and manage the growing risks and impacts from climate change.  Lightsmith sees a rapidly growing set of opportunities to invest in climate resilience in geospatial information, risk analytics, supply chain management, agricultural analytics, water efficiency and management, and even health analytics. 

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In 1903, there was a “Kitty Hawk Moment” when the Wright Brothers for the first time demonstrated powered manned flight.  Within a few years, there were dozens of companies producing airplanes.  In 1929, pilot Jimmy Doolittle made the first instruments-only flight, flying “blind” with only reference to the dials and gauges in the cockpit.  Prior to 1929, airplanes generally only flew in daylight in perfect weather conditions.  With that “Doolittle Moment,” the ability to fly at night and through weather and in turbulence was unlocked for the first time.

Lightsmith is looking for those technologies and solutions that can assess and address the risks and impacts of climate change.  Lightsmith is also seeking those innovations that can help transcend and succeed in spite of the increasing complexity generated by climate change.  

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Having launched the first private equity fund for adaptation and climate resilience, Lightsmith believes that there are attractive adaptation and resilience investment opportunities across the full range of investment categories: private equity, private credit, venture capital, listed equities, public credit, infrastructure, real estate, and more.  Integrated investment platform approaches to adaptation and climate resilience, as well as specialist expert strategies, can and should be pursued.  We have created a multi-trillion dollar challenge in climate change, which at least demands multi-billion dollar solutions.  In fact, perhaps someone should build the “aircraft carrier” multi-strategy platform to invest in climate resilience and adaptation.  Or perhaps the “resilience Berkshire Hathaway” – a permanent holding company of the most important climate resilience technology and solutions companies that scale up as the climate challenge accelerates.

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Climate change is here now.  Climate risk and impact will accelerate across all of society and the economy for the next five to fifteen to fifty years and beyond.  According to leading long-term investors, there is a trillion-dollar opportunity for investment in climate resilience. 

At Adapt Unbound, you contributed to a fireside chat on the evolving disclosure landscape and its implications for corporations and investors. How did that discussion unfold, and were there any insights or audience reactions that took you by surprise?

The conversation was incredibly timely, especially with Manifest Climate releasing our “Mind the Gap” report on the same day, which analyses climate disclosure maturity across the Global Fortune 500. The discussion surfaced a clear tension: while companies continue to disclose, even with regulatory pullback, there’s a persistent gap between disclosure and decision-useful climate information, particularly around how companies are taking action to minimise climate risk and focusing resources and management attention on what matters. What surprised me most was the strong interest from investors and other financial sector players in moving beyond checkbox compliance toward forward-looking climate intelligence. There’s growing recognition that disclosures need to reflect not just risk, but readiness. And organisations and financial institutions across the spectrum are looking at this info to make better decisions about their own businesses.

As we undergo a global climate transformation, how would you assess the current state of the market? Specifically, where do most companies stand in this transition, particularly in terms of integrating supply chain data into climate strategies and meeting investor disclosure expectations?

The Mind the Gap report revealed that even among the Global Fortune 500, only a minority have achieved meaningful maturity in climate disclosure, and supply chain integration remains a major blind spot. While many companies are making top-line commitments, there’s a noticeable lag in operationalising those goals through their value chains. Investors are increasingly expecting climate disclosures to go beyond the corporate boundary, but the tools and data governance required for that shift are not yet widespread. The market is in transition, but confidence is still building.

How can AI support companies in enhancing the accuracy and efficiency of climate-related financial disclosures, particularly when it comes to integrating supply chain data and meeting evolving standards like the TCFD?

AI has a huge role to play in accelerating climate disclosure maturity - not just in processing vast, unstructured datasets, but in standardising how climate risks are framed and quantified. At Manifest Climate, we are using expert-trained AI to reduce manual work and allow for rapid analysis of public disclosures at scale, to produce decision-useful insights. This type of "data crunching" goes beyond what humans can do, and will need to be rapidly scaled and operationalised to drive the transformative change required. By standardising datapoints and allowing for easy comparison across companies' disclosures, including within the supply chain, we can get to more strategic decisions and clarity across the value chain. It’s not about replacing human judgment - it’s about unlocking scale and improving consistency and comparability.

In the context of 2025’s evolving disclosure landscape, how are TCFD-aligned data models helping companies assess and report supply chain climate risks in a way that meets heightened investor expectations for transparency, comparability, and regulatory readiness?

Regulatory framework (not just TCFD, but also ISSB, CSRD, etc) aligned models are becoming the baseline for investor-grade climate disclosure, but their real value lies in helping companies organise decision-useful data, especially across portfolios and supply chains. What we are seeing, and what Mind the Gap highlights, is that companies with structured, repeatable disclosure processes are better equipped to identify risks, assess materiality, and communicate strategy clearly. With incoming regulations demanding more traceability and auditability, these models are not just frameworks, they are becoming strategic infrastructure.

Do you have any thoughts on how corporate decision-making should evolve to meet the challenges of today’s and tomorrow’s climate realities? What will it take for C-suite leaders to develop the confidence needed to effectively understand, manage, and disclose these emerging risks?

Building climate confidence in the C-suite means shifting from episodic reporting to embedded climate governance. Leaders need access to decision-grade data, not just for disclosures, but to inform capital allocation, procurement, and risk management. One of the clearest takeaways from Mind the Gap is that maturity in climate disclosure correlates with strategic clarity. Executives need tools and insights that translate climate risks into business terms, and frameworks like TCFD, coupled with AI-powered platforms, are beginning to make that possible. But culture change is just as critical: climate must be part of every leadership conversation.

How does the withdrawal of the SEC’s proposed climate rule affect the direction of corporate climate risk reporting and governance practices?

While the SEC's final rule abandons the proposed mandatory disclosure, the ruling itself was a pivotal step toward focusing business action. It is important to note that businesses are still acting; disclosure is not the only driver. Many companies were already taking steps to identify and assess their physical risk exposure, and many of these companies are still investing in adaptation. Nevertheless, it has undoubtedly become more challenging for risk and sustainability teams to gain buy-in for investment without the mandatory disclosure requirements acting as a driver.  

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The evolving regulatory landscape - including new disclosure rules from U.S. states - signals to corporate boards and executives the imperative to integrate climate risk into core governance and strategic decision-making processes. The conversation becomes less about external disclosure and more about business resilience and business value. This latest development underscores the necessity for companies to proactively align with international frameworks like TCFD and the EU's CSRD/Omnibus, ensuring consistency and comparability in disclosures across jurisdictions.​ Regulators are continuing to catch up to where financial markets already are.

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In today's environment, materiality and resilience are paramount, and it is important to reframe “ESG” and “climate action” in terms of economic growth, job creation, business resilience, and competitiveness, which resonate more effectively today. At WBCSD, we view such moments as opportunities for companies to lead by embedding climate resilience into their core strategies, ensuring long-term value creation regardless of regulatory mandates, and as such, have created a Business Leader’s Guide on Adaptation and Resilience.

What role will the newly approved Green Impact Exchange play in advancing U.S. climate adaptation disclosures and directing capital toward resilience-focused investments?

The Green Impact Exchange (GIX) will play a pivotal role in providing a greater degree of transparency on how companies are addressing climate issues, making it easier to direct capital toward resilience-focused investments. GIX will require listed companies to adopt specific sustainability standards, including transparent reporting on climate-related risks and adaptation strategies. This emphasis on disclosure aligns with the growing demand from investors for detailed information on how companies are addressing climate change impacts. 

By mandating such disclosures, GIX aims to improve the quality and consistency of climate-related information available to investors, facilitating more informed decision-making. GIX provides investors with streamlined access to firms actively engaged in climate resilience. GIX's structure is designed to attract capital to companies developing solutions for climate adaptation.

With the SEC’s proposed climate disclosure rule withdrawn, what steps can companies take to align with international standards like the TCFD and European sustainability frameworks, while also managing legal and compliance risks across jurisdictions?

Even in Europe, the disclosure landscape remains uncertain – omnibus changes to the CSRD are still unfolding and currently in the hands of EU ministers. However, if businesses approach disclosure with a focus on understanding their own risk exposure, rather than treating it as a compliance box-ticking exercise, they will be better positioned to navigate the evolving landscape and unlock value earlier than those who attempt to simply wait it out.

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Companies should adopt a comprehensive approach to climate disclosure, encompassing governance structures, risk management processes, and scenario analyses aligned with TCFD recommendations.​Using a range of scenarios – not a single projection, and couple that with business intelligence to understand what impact these risks will have on the business - not only financially in terms of P&L or money impact from extreme weather events - but also the operational impact (business interruptions, supply chain disruptions, equipment downtime, impacts on staff) and in terms of long-term business strategy (future viability of products, or business continuity) – and then adapt accordingly.

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It is also important to approach disclosure in a holistic manner. Leading companies are also considering nature and social risks alongside climate risks, looking at TNFD, and the upcoming TISFD to assess synergies or cascading impacts: 

• Start with materiality and governance: ensure climate risks and opportunities are integrated into corporate governance, risk management, and strategic planning, consistent with TCFD and ISSB expectations.
• Build cross-functional capacity: Companies need internal alignment across finance, sustainability, risk, and legal teams to produce consistent, credible disclosures across jurisdictions like the EU’s CSRD and emerging global standards.
• Disclose to drive performance: use climate reporting not just for compliance, but to drive performance, inform capital allocation, and engage investors and stakeholders around progress on transition plans and resilience.

For U.S. companies navigating complex compliance requirements, especially around ensuring the integrity and transparency of their suppliers’ supply chains, how do they manage the burden of associated costs, data quality, and detailed information gathering throughout their value chain?

U.S. companies can better manage compliance costs and supply chain transparency by prioritising high-risk areas, using shared digital platforms to streamline data collection, and working collaboratively with suppliers to build capacity and address the associated risks in their operations. Rather than aiming for full visibility overnight, the focus is on continuous improvement and smart risk management - balancing integrity with practicality.

What aspects of supply chain risk are we failing to communicate effectively, and how can we reframe the conversation to foster broader understanding in a constructive, non-political way?

There are several aspects that we fail to communicate. The first is that supply chain risk is not just a logistics problem. Many think of supply chains as shipping containers and factory schedules. We fail to convey how deeply supply chain risk is tied to business continuity, community resilience, national security, and consumer trust. For example, a climate-induced crop failure isn't just a farming issue – it's a supply chain collapse with ripple effects on food prices, product availability, and social stability. In the first half of 2024, supply chain disruptions increased by 30% compared to the same period in the previous year, driven by the escalating impact of volatile climate-related events, as well as social and labor disruptions.

Another point is that resilience isn’t just for backup plans; it’s better design. Too often, supply chain “resilience” is interpreted as having more inventory or alternate suppliers. But real resilience comes from building shorter, more transparent, and more equitable supply chains – a point that’s rarely made clearly.

It’s important for us to reframe the conversation to foster broader understanding. There are several ways to do this: 

• Reframe from “global supply chains” to “everyday essentials”:
  
  • Speak in terms people understand. Reframe risk in the context of products people rely on every day: food, medicine, clothing, technology. This shifts the conversation from abstract to relatable.
• Example: “When the supply chain breaks, it’s not a business problem—it’s a baby formula shortage, a delayed surgery, or higher grocery bills.”

• Reframe from “ESG pressures” to “consumer and investor expectations”: 
  
  • Frame responsible supply chain practices as a response to market signals, not ideology. Consumers want transparency. Investors want stability. This is about market alignment, not moral statements
• Use case studies, not jargon: 
  
  • Replace abstract threat descriptions with real-world stories.
  • An example would be two years ago when severe droughts in California and flooding in the Midwest disrupted the production of key crops like almonds, lettuce, corn, and soybeans. These climate-driven events reduced crop yields and delayed harvests, leading to higher prices and occasional shortages of fresh produce and packaged foods for U.S. consumers. As a result, grocery bills rose, and some products became less available, directly impacting American households.