The Resilience Opportunity: Unlocking Climate Resilience through Public-Private Collaboration 2025

Despite growing recognition that climate is a systemic financial risk, finance for mitigation and adaptation still falls far short of needs, especially in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) – often most vulnerable to climate shocks and least equipped to respond. With public finance constrained, the private sector is key to closing the gap. To achieve climate targets, EMDEs must mobilize $2.4 trillion/year by 2030 – including $1 trillion from private sources. International private climate finance to EMDEs doubled in two years to $36 billion in 2023, but it must grow 28-fold to meet the scale and urgency of the challenge.

The barriers are well known: insufficient investable projects, inadequate matchmaking between project supply and investor demand, limited financial market development, heightened political and forex risks, and high cost of capital.

This paper presents practical, targeted solutions that draw on insights from policy-makers, multilateral development banks, development finance institutions and climate finance experts. Crucially, the paper reflects input from diverse private investors with varying investment strategies, risk appetites and business goals. Based on these findings, the paper identifies six priority areas and 16 stakeholder-specific actions to unlock the next wave of private climate finance in EMDEs at scale.

The Quantum Technologies: Key Opportunities for Advanced Manufacturing and Supply Chains report explores how quantum technologies can unlock new capabilities across product design, factory operations and supply chains.

Carbon capture and utilization (CCU) present an opportunity to reduce emissions from industrial supply chains by converting captured CO₂ into valuable carbon-based products such as fuels, chemicals and building materials. This report discusses the potential role that emerging CCU pathways could play in a sustainable industrial transition and focuses on the challenges faced by innovators and first movers.
Policies currently favour carbon capture and storage (CCS) over utilization. However, as momentum builds behind industrial decarbonization, CCU merits thorough, context-specific consideration. CCU offers the potential to "defossilize" carbon-reliant industries – but for it to become viable, it requires supportive policy frameworks, patient capital and close collaboration across stakeholder groups.
The report analyses three specific barriers to progress: fragmented and inconsistent policy frameworks that heavily favour sequestration over utilization; the “valleys of death” that emerging CCU companies face, impacted by long development timelines, high capital requirements and immature business models that lack well-defined routes to revenue; and the role of cross-sectoral collaboration in scaling-up nascent CCU technologies within large, mature industrial complexes.

Climate change is impacting human health, with rising economic costs to industry, governments and communities. This report shows how businesses can protect their workforces, operations and growth, making human health a pillar of resilience.

The Chief People Officers Outlook explores priorities for building resilient, inclusive and tech-enabled workforces.