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No doubt about it: climate adaptation has entered the banking mainstream.
This year, financial regulators and lenders themselves have stepped up efforts to elevate the issue to boardrooms from Wall Street to Raffles Place. However, a rigorous accounting of banks’ adaptation maturity has remained elusive — until now.
Today, Climate Proof — in partnership with AI-powered start-up ClimateAligned — unveils the Global Bank Climate Adaptation Assessment 2025. This ranks 50 of the world’s top commercial banks by how clearly their public disclosures convey their adaptation readiness, as defined across 15 qualitative indicators.
The analysis offers a high-level snapshot of how the banking industry is adopting practices and processes to enhance its resilience and take advantage of growing adaptation opportunities across the real economy.
Source: Climate Proof, Global Bank Climate Adaptation Assessment 2025
It’s a mixed picture.
A handful of banks exhibit a high level of sophistication when it comes to adaptation strategy, physical climate risk assessment, and engagement with clients on resilience issues. UK lenders Standard Chartered and Barclays boast the highest overall maturity rankings, followed by Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo, National Australia Bank, and the Netherland’s Rabobank.
In contrast, America’s Wells Fargo and Capital One sit at the bottom of the table, with peers Truist Financial Corp and PNC Financial close by.
In between, there’s a broad middle of lenders from the US, Japan, Canada, and Europe with disclosures that cover some adaptation aspects well, and fall short on others.
Looking at the results indicator by indicator across banks shows just how unbalanced the industry’s adaptation readiness is. While most of the 50 lenders demonstrate a high level of sophistication when it comes to physical climate risk assessments and aligning their disclosures with popular reporting frameworks, few show they are engaging with the insurance industry on adaptation issues, or that they are incorporating national adaptation policies into their strategies.
These disclosure gaps imply weaknesses in lenders’ adaptation preparedness that could give rise to challenges down the line as extreme weather shocks and slower-moving climatic changes apply pressure to their portfolios.
📚 Download the Global Bank Climate Adaptation Assessment 2025 below to access all the insights and data from our benchmarking exercise.
🔎Climate Proof members can also explore the full dataset underpinning the assessment — including bank-by-bank indicator scores and the supporting evidence from their disclosures — with our interactive dashboard, accessible HERE.
🎫 Not a member yet? Get access to much more adaptation finance, tech, and policy intelligence by upgrading HERE.
Let us know what you think of the assessment by replying to this email or pinging [email protected].
Interested in learning more about ClimateAligned, whose tech powered the assessment? Then get in touch with Chief Commercial Officer Krista Tukiainen at [email protected].
Thanks for reading!
Louie Woodall
Editor
