The focus of CLIMINVEST is on improving the financial sustainability and bankability of climate adaptation and resilience investments by introducing the concept of Bankability-by-Design (BbD). The project addresses major barriers that limit private investment in climate adaptation, including the lack of viable business models and clear financial returns, uncertainty associated with long-term climate investments, limited integration with investors’ ESG portfolios, difficulties in identifying and monetising adaptation and mitigation co-benefits, and the high effort required to replicate successful solutions across different regions. CLIMINVEST develops a framework that considers bankability throughout the complete lifecycle of climate adaptation projects and introduces the concepts of continuous and predictive bankability, enabling stakeholders to continuously assess investment viability and anticipate factors that may negatively affect it. The project also develops ESG risk assessment and reporting tools, techniques for replicating and localising best practices, and a multi-sided marketplace through which public authorities, climate solution providers, investors and other stakeholders can discover, assess, finance and replicate bankable climate adaptation solutions.

DAC research group contributes to CLIMINVEST through the development of advanced data analytics and Machine Learning techniques for the assessment and classification of ESG-related risks. The group participates in the research activities concerning ESG data collection, analysis and classification and contributes to the integration of ESG information into enhanced bankability assessments and reporting mechanisms. Through these activities, DAC supports the development of methods that enable climate adaptation projects to be assessed not only according to their financial viability but also according to environmental, social and governance factors that influence their attractiveness to investors. The group’s research therefore contributes to the project’s broader objective of supporting data-driven and continuously updated assessments of climate investments and facilitating their inclusion within investors’ ESG strategies. UPRC participates in CLIMINVEST as one of the project’s research and technology organisations.