Introduction

This guidance paper offers a practical and consistent framework for assessing the positive adaptation and resilience (A&R) impacts of investments. The World Economic Forum identified extreme weather as the most significant global risk over the next ten years, leading to an anticipated multi-trillion-dollar market for adaptation solutions. While climate mitigation finance is well understood, adaptation finance requires clearer methodologies to accurately measure and report positive impacts on people, the planet, and the economy. The Adaptation and Resilience Investors Collaborative (ARIC) provides this framework to help investors develop strategies, prioritise investments, and manage portfolios based on clear, aggregable metrics rather than just the quantity of finance committed.

Structure and overview

Adaptation and resilience are defined as the ability to prepare, prevent, respond to, and recover from climate-related shocks and stresses. Resilience involves three dimensions: absorptive capacity (coping with change, e.g. parametric insurance), adaptive capacity (incremental adjustment, e.g. early warning systems), and transformative capacity (fundamental structural changes, e.g. systemic infrastructure shifts). Investors can integrate A&R impact assessment throughout the investment cycle, from origination to exit, by defining strategic objectives and monitoring progress against expectations.

The conceptual model for assessment starts with defining the physical climate risk context and impact pathways. Immediate results (outputs) contribute to wider changes (outcomes), which ultimately lead to increased resilience for people, the planet, or the economy. This ‘people, planet, and economy’ lens ensures a focus on social, environmental, and economic benefits beyond financial returns to the investor.

Adaptation and resilience impact assessment: applying the ‘Five Dimensions of Impact’

The framework uses the Five Dimensions of Impact (what, who, how much, contribution, and risk) as an organising logic. The ‘what’ dimension contextualises impact by recognising hazards, exposure, and vulnerability. It distinguishes between enabling investments, which provide adaptation solutions to others (e.g. weather-related insurance), and adapted investments, which are themselves made climate-resilient (e.g. a landslide-resistant road). One ARIC member demonstrated this by investing in a cereal crop seeds company, where the adapted component financed grain drying units and the enabling component financed the expansion of climate-smart crop breeding.

The ‘who’ dimension identifies stakeholders experiencing outcomes across three aspects: people (individuals and communities), planet (natural systems and biodiversity), and economy (resilient physical assets and businesses). The ‘how much’ dimension assesses the scale, depth, and duration of impact. Scale refers to the extent of the system boundary where vulnerability is reduced, while depth refers to the intensity of that reduction. For example, an ARIC member conducted an ex post study surveying more than 100 smallholder farmers to evaluate perceived improvements in their quality of life and revenues as a measure of impact depth.

‘Contribution’ focuses on how investor efforts result in better outcomes than a ‘without investment’ counterfactual, such as comparing a future with and without upgraded port drainage infrastructure. Finally, the ‘risk’ dimension addresses the likelihood of impact differing from expectations, specifically highlighting maladaptation—where actions intended to reduce risk inadvertently increase vulnerability elsewhere, such as riverside flood defences that increase risks for downstream communities.

Adaptation and resilience metrics

The framework proposes a non-exhaustive set of indicative metrics aligned with the Five Dimensions. For people, metrics might include the number of individuals supported to be more climate-resilient through adaptation solutions. For the planet, metrics could focus on the reduction in water abstraction from sensitive habitats or the area of habitat under climate-resilient management. For the economy, value-based metrics like the turnover of businesses supported to be more resilient allow for aggregation across portfolios.

Aggregation is most facilitated by people-based metrics (scale) and value-based economic metrics. However, planet-based metrics require careful consideration of context-specific natural systems. Investors are encouraged to establish qualifying thresholds for depth of impact to ensure aggregated data remains meaningful.

Looking forward

This guidance provides an initial blueprint for embedding A&R assessment into private investments. Future work will involve piloting and refinement to support the development of consistent definitions and taxonomies, such as the Climate Bonds Resilience Taxonomy. By bridging gaps between policy frameworks and ground-level delivery, this approach accelerates the understanding of how private finance can effectively support global climate resilience objectives, including the United Nations Global Goal on Adaptation.