Climate Risk and Adaptation

To help its clients understand and respond to the risks of climate change, IFC is developing best practices in assessing private sector risk and adaptation strategies.

We know that climate change and its impacts pose a series of risks to all private sector companies, including IFC clients, yet the question remains - how to approach and mitigate those risks?

This question has gone largely unaddressed due to a lack of baseline information, methodologies, and tools for assessing risk and making strategic decisions. Where these methodologies do exist, they are rarely tailored to the needs of private sector investors and government decision makers, especially in developing countries.

To help its clients understand and respond to the risks of climate change, IFC is developing best practices in assessing private sector risk and adaptation strategies.

In 2008, IFC initiated the Climate Risk Program, a series of pilot studies that analyzes climate risks and adaptation options for projects taken from different sectors and regions. The studies’ focus are private sector projects but with a significant emphasis on the cooperation and synergies with the public sector, research institutions and civil society. An overview of the findings from the first three studies were published in Climate Risk and Business.