Adaptation10: Adaptation 'Sommeliers'

No-one takes their broken-down car to the mechanic just to be told what’s wrong with it. They want it fixed, and they want options for how to do that.

The same is true of the corporations, municipalities, and financial institutions that invest in climate intelligence software. Yes, they want to understand their climate risk exposure: what hazards are menacing their fixed assets and supply chains, and what the worst-case financial impacts could be if these threats are left unchecked. But a tally of potential losses is not a solution in and of itself.

What’s been missing is the layer that translates risk intelligence into decisions that can actually be budgeted for and implemented. The bottleneck is no longer climate science itself. The models exist, the science is robust. The gap is one of clarity — and increasingly of curation.

Hence why one of the hottest trends in climate intelligence today is matching users’ identified climate exposures with the real-world fixes that lower their vulnerability. Your authors saw a number of these companies at the recent ClimateTech Connect conference outside Washington, DC, and described them as ‘adaptation sommeliers’, charged with pairing specific climate risk exposures with the appropriate solution.

This is no easy task. Adaptation is highly location- and hazard-specific. A solution that makes sense in one context may be completely inappropriate for another.

Take the example of stormwater runoff management. A warmer world is also a wetter world, and one where rain-heavy storms are becoming more common. In some cities, like Washington, DC and Hamburg, green stormwater infrastructure has been rolled out: building roofs layered with grass and vegetation absorb rainwater, reducing what flows into the sewer network and lowering the chance these systems become overloaded.

This nature-based approach makes sense in temperate climates where greenery thrives. But it does not make sense in more hot and arid regions, like Nevada or southern Spain, where maintaining large, grassy bioretention basins would consume large amounts of already limited water, and green roofs would likely wilt under the glare of the sun. For these places, too, the major flooding peril comes from rare cloudburst events that can drench a small area in short order. Such events would overwhelm the green infrastructure that works in less volatile regions.

There is no one-size-fits-all adaptation solution for every hazard in every locale. This obliges climate intelligence software vendors to build up vast libraries of adaptation solutions across the contexts in which practitioners might seek to implement them. It also puts a premium on geospatial and local meteorological data so they can match the right measure to the right place.

The diversity of users matters as much as the diversity of hazards. For a city planner, adaptation pairing might mean comparing green infrastructure against conventional drainage investment. For a real estate investor, it might mean understanding which assets in a portfolio are exposed and which interventions could change their risk profile. For a supply chain manager, it might mean identifying which sourcing regions face compounding climate pressures, and what alternatives are viable. A good adaptation sommelier reads the room before recommending the bottle.

ClimateTech Connect also brought a strong transatlantic contrast into focus. Our observations suggest that the US is roughly two to three years ahead of Europe in turning climate adaptation from a discipline into an industry. The gap is not one of risk knowledge. Europeans were well represented at the institutional level. The gap is one of density: of founders building products, of cities contracting solutions, of underwriters designing new instruments.

Beyond making sure they recommend the right option, adaptation sommeliers are also under pressure to articulate the return on investment of each solution they present. Adaptation isn’t costless, and one of the biggest hurdles to greater take-up is a lack of understanding of the benefits of acting. A handful of companies are now working to define credible adaptation ROIs as part of their core offerings, including several profiled in this month’s Adaptation10.

It’s likely that sooner rather than later, all climate intelligence vendors will have to offer some form of adaptation ROI metric to make the grade for potential clients. Then the competition will shift to which metric is the most credible, or perhaps which speaks the language of corporate finance most fluently. Those who control budgets in public and private bodies tend to respond more readily to investment plans built around familiar financial information than around adaptation-specific variables they’ve never encountered before.

As that contest unfolds, the companies highlighted today have a head start. Their early efforts to establish credentials as adaptation sommeliers could prove to be a durable advantage.

We hope you enjoy this month’s selection. Wine pairing optional.

Adaptation10 company profiles are compiled by DSR & Partners and reviewed by Climate Proof. Company funding and FTE data are extracted from public sources.

💡 Want to explore the profiles of 400+ adaptation companies in one handy database? Then check out the Adaptation & Resilience Innovation Search Engine, now available in public beta to Climate Proof members. Feedback? Let us know HERE

AdaptMap is a climate tech start-up focused on advancing urban climate resilience through a unique citizen-integrated approach to physical climate risk assessment. By combining localized environmental data, heat vulnerability analysis, and interactive mapping technologies with direct community feedback, AdaptMap captures objective climate exposure information and human-centered insights on how residents experience heat stress, flooding, and environmental burdens in their daily lives. This integration of public perception data creates a more comprehensive understanding of urban vulnerability, enabling municipalities, businesses, and urban planners to design adaptation strategies that are both scientifically robust and socially responsive.

| HQ: Koln, Germany | Theme: Cities & Settlements | Sector: Buildings / Construction / Urban & Community Planning | Hazards: 🌡️ Heat | Last Raise: N/A | FTE: 2-10 | Contact: [email protected]

LocationHealth provides advanced climate and environmental risk intelligence designed to help businesses, investors, and developers assess physical climate vulnerabilities tied to specific geographic locations. Its platform combines climate forecasting, environmental health indicators, and risk analytics to identify multiple climate-related threats. By translating complex climate variables into actionable business intelligence, Location Health empowers organizations to make more informed operational decisions.

| HQ: Herrliberg, Switzerland | Theme: Cities & Settlements / Infrastructure / Water & Sanitation | Sector: Buildings / Urban & Community Planning / Water Infrastructure | Hazards: 🌊 Flood / 🌡️ Heat / 🌧️Precipitation / ⛈️ Storm | Last Raise: ? | FTE: 2-10 | Contact: www.locationhealth.solutions

Resiliocs Intelligence operates an AI-powered climate risk intelligence platform that helps institutions understand, price, and reduce climate-driven losses across their portfolios. The platform delivers asset-level risk projections and adaptation ROI analytics. It also automatically generates customized adaptation strategies for each hazard type, enabling clients to move beyond risk identification toward strategic resilience implementation.

| HQ: Hamilton, Canada | Theme: Industry & Commerce / Infrastructure | Sector: Insurance / Financial Services | Hazards: Various | Last Raise: $180,000 (Seed — Aug 2025) | FTE: 2-10 | Contact: www.resiliocs.com/about/

Tenax ai applies artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to property-level physical climate risk assessments. Its platform enables organizations to model and anticipate risks related to floods, storms, heat extremes, and environmental disruptions with greater precision. It also connects homeowners with vendors and funding options for property upgrades, and offers ongoing monitoring and alerts to manage risk effectively.

| HQ: Los Angeles, California, US | Theme: Industry & Commerce / Social Systems | Sector: Disaster Risk Reduction / Insurance | Hazards: 🌊 Flood / 🌧️ Precipitation / ⛈️ Storm / 🔥 Wildfire | Last Raise: Undisclosed (Convertible Note — Sept 2025) | FTE: 2-10 | Contact: [email protected]

Resilens* is a “decision engine” for climate adaptation that helps public and private decision-makers turn climate risk into fundable, defensible adaptation plans. The platform combines hazard data, site-level risk analysis, and their proprietary AdaptationReturn metric to prioritize adaptation measures and generate investment cases.

| HQ: Zurich, Switzerland | Theme: Cities & Settlements / Health / Infrastructure / Industry & Commerce | Sector: Buildings / Healthcare Services & Medical Facilities / Urban & Community Planning / Insurance | Hazards: Various | Last Raise: ? | FTE: 11-50 | Contact: www.resilens.com/contact

*Resilens is a Climate Proof sponsor