Media Release
Climate Proof and ClimateAligned launch unique ranking of bank adaptation maturity as COP30 spotlights climate resilience
Nov 13, 2025 @ New York / London
A new global benchmark reveals stark differences in how the world's leading banks are building resilience against physical climate risks and capitalizing on the emerging adaptation investment theme.
The Global Bank Climate Adaptation Assessment 2025, produced by Climate Proof in collaboration with ClimateAligned, uses an AI-powered evaluation system to rank 50 of the world's largest commercial banks by their adaptation maturity, as evidenced by their public disclosures.
The analysis — built on the brief.green generative AI platform developed by ClimateAligned — evaluated thousands of pages of public disclosures from the world's top lenders, scoring them against 15 indicators of adaptation governance, strategy, and risk integration. The AI-driven approach enables consistent, transparent, and replicable assessments across institutions, offering the first scalable way to compare banks' adaptation readiness.
"Adaptation finance is the next frontier for the banking sector — but progress can't be managed without visibility. By combining deep domain expertise with AI, we can now see how prepared the world's largest lenders are to withstand physical climate risks and finance resilience."
"Leveraging our brief.green platform, we're showing how AI can generate consistent, evidence-based insights that help regulators, investors, and banks take faster, better-informed action on resilience."
The findings show wide disparities across regions. UK and European lenders such as Standard Chartered and Barclays lead the field, while many North American and Asian institutions trail behind. The report also finds that while most banks conduct physical climate risk assessments, few have translated those insights into adaptation-focused lending strategies, client engagement programs, or insurance partnerships — critical components of systemic resilience.
The assessment arrives as policymakers and financial regulators emphasize adaptation as a twin pillar to mitigation in global climate finance. Guidance from the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) and the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) has urged lenders to integrate adaptation into business-as-usual. Yet, as the report shows, most banks remain at an early stage.
"COP30 is shaping up to be the 'Adaptation COP,' and finance will play a decisive role in determining whether economies can withstand the physical impacts of climate change. By benchmarking adaptation maturity, this analysis helps investors, regulators, and the banks themselves identify where leadership — and urgent improvement — is needed."
The full report, including individual bank rankings and indicator-level insights, is available at here.
Climate Proof is a leading climate journalism platform focused on adaptation, resilience, and climate finance.
ClimateAligned is a London based technology company specialising in AI-driven solutions to scale sustainable finance.
Louie Woodall, Founder & Editor, Climate Proof: louie@climateproof.news
Krista Tukiainen, Co-Founder & CCO, ClimateAligned: krista@climatealigned.co