BCG experts helped launch a clean energy tech hub with $80M+ in funding—driving innovation and jobs in underserved communities.
Our Approach to Climate Risk, Adaptation, and Resilience
BCG is working with both national and local governments and companies to assess their exposure to climate risks, support their climate adaptation and resilience strategies, develop their solution responses, and mobilize funding in order to build maximum protection for people, the economy, and natural ecosystems.
For the Public Sector
- Assessing existing local and national adaptation plans based on our proprietary framework and benchmarking those plans against best practices
- Supporting decision-makers with advanced analytics to assess climate risks and climate impact on social, economic, and natural factors
- Mobilizing action and funding by estimating the cost of inaction, defining the landscape for bankable projects, and calculating the return on investment
- Partnering with relevant private sector actors to deliver on the adaptation plans
For the Private Sector
- Mapping climate risks and hazards (such as flooding and extreme heat) to company assets
- Prioritizing assets for deep-dive risk assessment and then identifying climate vulnerabilities for those assets
- Quantifying the operational and financial impact of the risks to those assets
- Defining the most effective climate adaptation and resilience measures to address risks to priority assets
- Partnering with relevant public sector actors to deliver on the adaptation plans
Our Client Work in Climate Risk, Adaptation, and Resilience
Our climate adaptation consulting experts supported a Southeast Asian city to identify priority actions to deliver resilience against a range of anticipated sea-level rise scenarios. Different solutions were assessed from a social, economic and natural asset perspective to provide a rigorous analytical fact base for both the development of project solutions as well as the design of an effective national adaptation plan.
Our climate resilience consulting experts supported a megacity government in West Africa to enable data-driven decision-making regarding building their climate-resilience by determining the cost of climate inaction in terms of population affected, damage to infrastructure, and impact on the city's GDP. Based on this, an A&R project pipeline was developed with financing from both the public and private sectors.
Our climate risk assessment experts reviewed a major developed country’s official A&R strategies to both determine the best starting point and assess gaps against best practices and then designed an approach and timeline of action required to develop a national adaptation plan within a short timeframe.
Our climate risk consulting experts developed an analytical approach to assess impact across the broad span of climate risks to the assets of a main roads' infrastructure operator, informing strategic considerations on the most-relevant areas for resiliency intervention.
Client Success
Video
August 28, 2023
Alberto Milvio, former CFO of Autostrade per l’Italia Group, and Concetta Testa, head of sustainability, share how the company is working to realize sustainable infrastructure.
Our Partnerships in Climate Risk, Adaptation, and Resilience
UN High-Level Climate Change Champions
As part of our ongoing collaboration with the UN Climate Change High-Level Champions, BCG has conducted research and analysis to outline the context, challenges, and requirements to achieve the Sharm el-Sheikh Adaptation Outcomes by 2030. This work has been captured in a series of deep-dive reports, launched at COP27.
In these reports, we explore the adaptation outcomes in four key areas, highlighting what is needed to meet these bold yet actionable targets. Our reports build on our global experience of supporting leaders across the public and private sector in defining their pathways to climate adaptation and resilience.
The private sector can be instrumental in building a climate-resilient future through vital systems such as food and agriculture, health, and infrastructure.
There is an adaptation and resilience financing gap that needs to be met. Enabling these flows requires a fundamental transformation of the financial system.
Only ~20% of country governments are planning the necessary A&R actions. Stakeholders need to come together now to plan, fund, and implement A&R actions.
We are on the brink of a catastrophic and multifaceted food crisis. Systemic transformation is needed to fortify against climate impacts and reduce emissions.
Our Insights on Climate Risk, Adaptation, and Resilience
Article
March 12, 2025
The investments necessary to mitigate and adapt to climate change are far less than the cost of inaction—11% to 27% of global GDP by 2100.
Leaders from both the public and private sectors must take bold action to protect communities, organizations, and natural systems from the impacts of climate change. A new generation of data-driven and digital technologies will play a central role in this effort.
Video
October 21, 2024
Floods and the Future of Migration
Jarrod Pendlebury of Cambridge Peaceshaping and Climate Lab and BCG’s Dean Muruven discuss a new report on water as a driver of climate migration worldwide.
Report
September 20, 2024
Global warming will alter the quality and quantity of water on every continent, triggering a massive displacement of people around the world. Who is most at risk?
Article
September 9, 2024
BCG has quantified the staggering cost of inaction on climate. To avoid worst-case scenarios, the private sector and other stakeholders must ramp up their collaboration.
Our Climate Risk, Adaptation, and Resilience Consulting Experts
Our experts in climate resilience consulting and climate adaptation consulting help both private and public sector clients identify and address their most pressing vulnerabilities surrounding climate impact. Here are some of our experts on the topic.
