Climate adaptation will require significantly more private finance than is currently available. Although climate risks are increasing rapidly, investors, banks and insurers still lack practical tools for assessing and supporting adaptation measures. A new Nordic project led by Luontoa aims to close this gap.
Luontoa has been awarded funding for the LandAdapt Finance Nordic project through the Nordic Climate Adaptation Programme, funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers. The project will develop decision-support tools that enable institutional landowners, banks and insurance companies to integrate climate adaptation into their investment, lending and insurance decisions.
Climate risks such as drought, flooding, storms, pests and plant diseases are already affecting forests and agricultural land across Northern Europe. While understanding of climate risks and adaptation has increased significantly, finance sector actors still lack practical tools for assessing how adaptation measures affect asset values, expected returns and investment risk profiles.
The project will develop new concepts and assessment frameworks for analysing the financial benefits, financeability and insurability of adaptation investments in forests and agricultural land. The aim is to provide solutions for more consistent ways of assessing how adaptation measures can improve risk awareness, reduce losses, protect long-term value and improve resilience.
The project complements Luontoa’s ongoing work in the Precilience project by focusing specifically on the role of private finance in climate adaptation. It will also identify situations in which public incentives, blended finance or public–private partnerships are needed to accelerate adaptation measures.
Bringing climate risks into financial decision-making
“Climate adaptation will not scale unless its benefits can be expressed in a way that informs investment, lending and insurance decisions. Our goal is to build this missing bridge: to demonstrate when adaptation protects asset value, reduces financial risks and creates solutions that can genuinely be financed and insured. The funding from NCM and this project can provide tangible value for finance sector actors,” says Lauri Moisander, Lead Consultant at Luontoa and Project Lead.
The project will run from August 2026 to October 2027 and will bring together representatives from the financial sector, institutional landowners, the insurance industry, research organisations and public authorities across the Nordic countries and Estonia.
More information: Lauri Moisander, Lead Consultant, lauri@luontoaconsulting.fi
Photo: Yulian Alexeyev on Unsplash