Market Insights
McKinsey sized the market for climate resilience technologies at up to $1 trillion by 2030.
- “For corporate executives and investors of private capital, we estimate technologies that support climate resilience could represent addressable markets worth $600 billion to $1 trillion by 2030.”
- This report differs from most climate adaptation market sizes to date by being a bottom-up summation of a list of key technologies, rather than an estimate of the overall adaptation funding needed to protect lives and livelihoods.
- To corroborate the view that climate adaptation is seeing increasing demand from private companies, McKinsey conducted an analysis of public comments across 200 earnings calls, analyst and investor days, and press releases of S&P 500 and STOXX Europe 600 companies and found that mentions of climate-resilience-related terms increased 55 percent from 2021 to 2025.
Moody’s found that climate adaptation can support credit strength.
- Rising global economic and insured losses are intensifying the focus on adaptation investment, which can reduce credit exposure to extreme weather and to broader environmental and social risks.
Marsh released its annual Climate Adaptation Report. The 2025 survey of major private sector organizations found that:
- Assessing the impacts of chronic perils is becoming more of a priority. More respondents identified heat and water stress (chronic) perils than any other as part of their physical risk assessments, with only flooding ranking higher.
- Most businesses surveyed are not using cost-benefit analysis to make the business case for adaptation. More than half of respondents who believe they have sufficient funding to carry out adaptation projects do not conduct a cost-benefit analysis before they start implementing projects.
- Organizations are strengthening their resilience with business continuity management and engineering measures. More than half of respondents have already implemented or are planning to implement business continuity management or engineering measures. Additionally, these are the areas they identified as most in need of support and guidance.
- Access to insurance is not yet driving investments in adaptation. Only 5% of respondents noted “access to insurance” as their primary motivation for investing in adaptation, compared to 53% who prioritized “the need to manage risk.”
Tailwind Updates
Recent Events
New York Climate Week saw more of an adaptation and resilience focus this year than ever before.
On Monday, Tailwind Futures co-hosted the Adaptation Forum, which received over 700 sign-ups and had representatives from organizations totaling $6 trillion in AUM.
- Click here for the full photo archive.
- For a post-event recap, go here.
On Thursday, we hosted Resilience Finance Day with GARI and The Lightsmith Group and had a world-class lineup of adaptation and resilience experts from across sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, consultancies, government, some of the world’s largest investment firms, risk and ratings companies, and more..
Fellowships, Accelerators and Prizes
- SHRM Labs is looking for growth-focused HR tech startups to apply to its WorkplaceTech Accelerator (WTA) program.
- Do you know startups addressing critical issues at work, the workplace or workforce? This is a great opportunity for their solution to get backed by SHRM, the largest global network of HR leaders and executives.
- Program benefits include:
- $200K safe note investment
- Your own curated advisory council comprised of HR and business executives matched to them based on your needs.
- Connections with potential users for product and market feedback as well as SHRM’s larger network of investors and leaders.
- Startups focused on health, climate, and the workforce this one is for you!
Upcoming Events
- Oct 13: Sustainable Brands – San Diego
- Is your organization planning an event focused on adaptation and resilience? Do you have new research or work you want to highlight? Do you want to host events focused on enhancing resilience in the face of extreme weather changes? Let us know here.
- More details on our calendar of events coming soon!
- Oct 21-23: WEF Urban Transformation Summit – San Francisco
- Osama will join an executive roundtable on urban resilience.
- Oct 21-23: TDK Ventures 100X Event – San Francisco
- Emilie will join a panel on “The Rise of Climate Adaptation and Carbon Removal” on Thursday, Oct 23rd
- Oct 27-29: SOCAP – San Francisco
- Emilie will emcee the Founder Showcase: Women Entrepreneurs Driving Change session organized by the Cartier Women’s Initiative.
- Nov 4-6: ULI Fall Meeting – San Francisco
- Emilie will participate in a private panel discussion on resilience innovation hosted by the Responsible Property Owner Council
- Dec 3: Cleantech Spark: Tokyo – Tokyo, Japan
- Frank Freitas will be attending
- Dec 10-11: Adapt Unbound Global Flood and Water Risk Summit – Amsterdam
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