Choosing the right climate adaptation partner: from climate uncertainty to created value

The right adaptation service provider does not just "show the risk": they prioritize sites, quantify avoided losses, and help make investment decisions. In a context where climate impacts asset valuation and investment decisions, the quality of data and models, as well as the ability to demonstrate a return on investment (ROI) for adaptation, are essential.

"The diagnosis informs your decisions: a poor diagnosis equals destroyed value"
If the diagnosis is approximate or outdated, relies on outdated or unupdated data, produces opaque scores instead of robust and traceable metrics (expected annual loss, days of unavailability, water heights, probabilities of occurrence, ROI), omits perils or lacks precision at the site/asset level and transparency (undocumented assumptions and limits), then your decisions will reflect this diagnosis: biased prioritizations, poorly allocated CAPEX, unverifiable ROI, poorly calibrated adaptation investments and insurance coverage, underestimated residual exposures, and ultimately, wasted time, loss of credibility, financial losses, and destruction of value.

Here are some criteria to consider to make the right choice of provider and get on the right track from the start:

Tip #1: Transparency

What are the source data? Are they certified and auditable? What scenarios have been chosen and why? How are risk metrics calculated and applied to the GPS coordinates of your assets or suppliers? Are the methods available?

➡️ Demand transparency regarding the origin and granularity of the data, the chosen scenarios and their limits. This is essential to justify your decisions in committee and in front of auditors.

Tip #2: Scientific Rigor

Are the methods aligned with best practices in risk management? Validated by experts? Are they robust and replicable?

➡️ Demand access to all methodological elements used to calculate scores and metrics. No risk score should come from a black box.

Tip #3: Uncertainty

Adaptation should rely on ranges of outcomes, not on single points, and on quantified probabilities. The sizing must incorporate not only average values but also extremes.

➡️ Demand multi-model approaches that provide minimum, median, and maximum values by scenario, by year, and that incorporate sensitivities into decision-making (CAPEX, phasing).

Tip #4: Useful Granularity & Digital Twins

Color maps created without traceable methods are useless. Within a few meters, you are exposed…or not. Do you have tools capable of integrating soil types, your buildings, access, vegetation cover, topography, pipelines, and evacuation infrastructures, and applying the scenario-based evolution of precipitation over your chosen period?

➡️ Demand a partner capable of drilling down to GPS coordinates for critical perils and justifying their results in accordance with accounting and environmental rules.

Tip #5: From Climate Risk… to Financial Risk

The climate exposure of an asset is basic information, but it is not enough to take action. Your investment decisions are based on translating this exposure into potential losses of value or productivity. You must focus your investments on the most critical sites.

➡️ Demand actionable metrics: expected annual loss, days of unavailability, avoided costs, ROI of adaptation measures. In short, demand to be able to arbitrate your investments and renegotiate insurance and financing.

Tip #6: Completeness of Perils and Compliance

Avoid blind spots. Your diagnosis must be complete: does it cover runoff flooding (the leading cause of natural disaster declarations)? Extreme phenomena? Risks that have never occurred before? A diagnosis based solely on historical claims is unusable. How would you justify financial losses caused by a peril absent from your analysis?

➡️ Demand a complete diagnosis, in the sense of the taxonomy, IFRS, and CSRD.

Golden Rule

Demand a decision-making partner, not just a provider of exposure scores: a partner whose deliverables are useful, actionable, scientifically robust, and enable you to create the expected value.

Want to check if Tardigrade AI ticks all the boxes? Contact us and let’s turn climate uncertainty into resilience and competitive advantage together!