Adaptation and Resilience: New Innovation &amp, Venturing Opportunities for a 2° World

Climate change is occurring, and resilience becomes more costly and challenging as we wait. Because of this, Cleantech Group consciously concentrates on innovation to improve adaptation and resilience to climate-related risks. Our research team has been tough at work dissecting topics including grid resilience, crop inputs, light resilience, and climate risk analysis systems.

This study reached its conclusion on September 10^th, when we held a 1-day event in Boston ^that was dedicated solely to adaptation and resilience, bringing up local leaders and ^the innovators most eager to offer solutions to adaptation and resilience issues.

Here are some of the highlights.

Adaptation &amp, Mitigation Funding

Only 4-5 % of global cleantech funding is currently being invested in adaptation technologies, highlighting the urgent need for investment in these areas.

While mitigation usually takes center stage, adaptation remains a side topic in several discussions. This is concerning because adaptation costs are anticipated to go skyrocket. The monthly funding gap for adaptation could reach an enormous$ 212 billion by 2030.

Now, most adaptation funding comes from governments and people institutions. Personal sector involvement, which will be the ultimate deciding factor, is also lagging.

Focussing on some important areas for discussion, below are some key takeaways from the event including energy, agriculture, insurance, and drought resilience technology ecosystems:

Assurance Against Climate Risk

Visited by Christopher Lowell, Managing Director of InnSure, Valkyrie Holmes, CEO of Faura, and Peter Ortez, Principal at Munich Venture Partners, we discussed how the insurance sector worked with innovators and how innovation can transform the sector: &nbsp,

• Insurance is n’t one uniform sector — when it comes to innovation, they are demand owners, enablers, innovators, investors, and even BLOCKERS.
• Quantifying real climate risks can increase the individual lines of insurance and promote greater policyholder engagement and RISK REDUCTION.
• Climate risk increases liability risks, which will increase the need for novel solutions.
• Insurance companies are expanding, but insuretechs are expanding more quickly!

Ultimately, the one-day event highlighted adaptation as more than just an adjustment to climate change — it’s also a catalyst for decarbonization. While adaptation is necessary to reduce risks and strengthen resilience against climate change, mitigation is still important. As the world faces increasing climate risks, these conversations spotlighted the multi-trillion-dollar opportunities available to those willing to invest in a healthier, fairer, and more resilient future.

Building a Climate-Ready Grid

Moderated by Cleantech Group’s Zainab Gilani, Associate, Energy &amp, Power, this panel featured a diversity of speakers working across grid resilience including Sander Cohan, Head of Innovation from National Grid Partners, David Miller, Managing Partner at Clean Energy Ventures, Jessica Harrison, Executive Director at VEIR, and Mishal Thadani, CEO at Rhizome. &nbsp,

Important takeaways include:

• In discussions about building a more resilient grid, dynamic line ratings ( DLR ) solutions are extremely important, especially as weather patterns and temperatures fluctuate across the country. DLR enables utilities to adjust to real-time weather patterns and the power-carrying capacity of a transmission line.
• Mishal Thadani discussed the importance of utilities to understand and calculate risk, particularly given that the number of weather-related outages and extreme weather events has increased significantly in the past ten years. The platform of Rhizome makes use of AI, historic climate data, and forecasts for the potential to identify flaws and assist utilities in making investment decisions based on this information to build a more resilient system.
• Additionally, VEIR discussed the value of using their system, which makes use of high temperature superconductors and a novel cooling system, to increase transmission capacity by 5 to 10 times as much as conventional conducting lines. Their cooling systems also stop sag, which another conducting lines must deal with as temperatures rise. &nbsp,

It is crucial that innovations and solutions to improve grid reliability are adopted because of the significance the grid plays in the distribution of energy between businesses, homes, hospitals, and other important services. The grid must adapt to changing weather patterns and climates to prevent possible catastrophic outages.

Crop Science Innovation: Key to a Climate-Resilient Food System

Gabriella Rufo, a consultant for Cleantech Group, moderated a panel discussion with Enko Chem’s Chief Science Officer Tom Meade and Josh Speros, the investment manager at BASF. Gabriella opened the discussion by introducing some important research findings to establish the climate for crop resilience:

• The goal of Crop Science Innovations ‘ North Star is to provide more affordable, nutritious food for more people without harming nature.
• To meet growing food demand, crop production needs to nearly twice by 2050, but there must also be a balance between increasing agricultural production for long-term food security and reducing environmental impact.
• Crop science for adaptation is complicated, with a toolbox of technologies improving how crops withstand impacts of climate change, use nutrients to boost yields, and protect against pests, weeds, diseases, and extreme weather conditions.

&nbsp, Highlights from the discussion:

With its AI-driven model, start-ups like Enko are reducing the time to market novel crop inputs by up to 75 %.
• As traditional R&amp, D, and stringent regulations slow the development of farm innovations, it is a difficult task to bring them to life.
• Start-ups ‘ agility, free from identity research investment, allows them to reimagine pesticide discovery, experiment with novel chemistries, leverage cutting-edge tools, and quickly adapt to changing market conditions and farmers ‘ evolving needs — giving them a distinct edge over corporate giants.
• The success of this approach depends on making it as accessible as possible for farmers around the world and as simple to use and incorporate into the farming process.
• In countries like Japan, where farming faces an aging workforce and shrinking agricultural land, precision agriculture emerges as the game-changer — leveraging AI, drones, and data analytics to boost efficiency, reduce workload, and attract tech-savvy talent to the fields of tomorrow.
• Pharma-inspired techniques are revolutionizing herbicide discovery, allowing fast screening of billions of molecules for qualified, safer weed control solutions.
• We also need innovation to make the actual production of agrochemicals more sustainable, as adding and using more fertilizers and pesticides wo n’t solve the issue. Using a manufacturing process with lower energy intensity and based on alternative raw materials, the German fermentation plant from BASF is bringing novel genetic fungicides and seed treatment solutions to market.

Taming the Dry Spell: Modern Solutions for Water Scarcity

Attended by Veronique Bourgier, Vice President at Veolia North America, Christopher Kurth, Chief Technology Officer at Aqua Membranes, Snehal Desai, SVP &amp, Chief Growth and Innovation Officer at Xylem, and Taylor Evans, Sr. We discussed the potential for innovation in drought and essential market dynamics with Imagine H2O’s Innovation Manager, Financing.

The panel’s main conclusions were:

• As we ebb closer to a water crisis for 4 billion people by 2030, growing industries such as electrolyzers, biogas, and hydrogen will even increase water demand. These are the sectors that have the resources to invest in water innovation and scale it up.
• Some large corporations have a plan in place to accomplish their objectives, despite the fact that many of them continue to make people commitments to reduce and improve water use.
• When tackling water scarcity, water reuse is our best friend.
• Some solutions to water scarcity issues involve combining existing technologies with AI or online twins.
• Water system flexibility is adaptation that provides resilience to altering or extreme weather events that affect water quality.
• The hottest innovations for investment at the moment are providing crisis-driven solutions ( e. g., PFAS ), waste-to-value solutions such as methane capture from wastewater, or utilizing AI for system efficiency.

New technologies can enable us to move away from just reacting to climate change and instead of actively preparing for them. This is particularly important in sectors like insurance, which are already feeling the heat ( literally ) from climate risks. While some other fragile sectors are no adapting, insurers are, out of necessity. &nbsp,

It is obvious that creative adaptation solutions are required. More risk-sharing between the creators and demand owners of novel technologies is likely to be a key factor in gaining confidence in business models supporting adaptation technologies, and it can help unblock the financing obstacles. &nbsp,