Making resilience count: the economic value of climate readiness

Climate change is already having irreversible effects on the planet.

Infrastructure systems present a huge opportunity to create a more climate-resilient future.

Yet, historically, there has been underinvestment in maintaining and upgrading infrastructure assets.

This means critical systems on which people and the economy depend are not as resilient as they could or need to be.

One of the barriers to making investing in infrastructure climate resilience and adaptation a priority is that it does not have a market value.

In our 2023 paper How can the UK’s infrastructure system be made more climate resilient?, the ICE recommended that the UK government undertake a national review of the economics of adaptation to close that gap.

The aim of this policy programme is to set out how such an economic review could and should be achieved.

This would help strengthen the case for the government to implement the ICE’s recommendation and embed climate resilience and adaptation into its spending plans.

Share your views

The ICE is keen to hear from interested stakeholders regarding the following questions:

1. Which sectors and timescales should the review examine?
2. Which department, institution or individual should lead and coordinate the review?
3. What climate-risk and infrastructure-asset datasets exist, who owns them and where are the gaps?
4. What methodologies should be used to estimate the economic cost of inaction?
5. What economic valuation methods are most appropriate for adaptation projects?
6. What lessons can be learned from international approaches and other sectors?
7. How can the review evaluate the role of economic and safety regulators in embedding adaptation into decisions?
8. How should success be monitored over time, given the often-invisible benefits of adaptation and resilience?

Please contact [email protected] with your views by 12 June. All responses will be treated confidentially.

The findings from responses will inform a policy paper later this year with a series of recommendations for government and decision-makers.