Increasing efforts to adapt to climate change impacts alongside ongoing mitigation efforts is becoming crucial, say Standard Life's Bruno Gardner and Hetal Patel.
Most investors are no more than three years into evaluating physical climate risk exposure in their portfolios, however.
But both asset owners and managers report obstacles to deployment.
While more than half of asset owners engage with their managers on physical climate risk and resilience, policy engagement is not yet on their horizon.
Inside: Responsible Investor’s survey of what asset managers and owners think about physical climate risk and resilience: How they are building it into decision-making processes; The hurdles they face; And how the space will evolve. In partnership with Standard Life
Almost 80% of investor respondents say data coverage is either average or poor and holds back investor action.
How the Responsible Investor Climate Risk and Resilience Survey 2026 was conducted.
Physical climate risk is occupying investor minds, and they are spending to access the data and modelling scenarios to understand how and where they can make changes to facilitate sustainable progress.
Inside: Why the heat is on at COP30; How understanding the scale of future physical climate risk is proving a challenge; Different approaches to tackling portfolio risks; Expert analysis from industry leaders; And much more…
Financial commitment to the climate cause is growing but investment in adaptation lags mitigation.