The Resilience Opportunity Unlocking Climate Resilience through Public Private Collaboration 2025

ARCHETYPE EXAMPLE 4 Urban stream restoration with surrounding asset appreciation A major Asian city revitalized a buried urban stream by replacing an elevated roadway with an open green corridor. Though publicly led, the project demonstrated how nature-based climate resilience measures can enhance real estate values and catalyse broader urban regeneration, offering important signals for future private sector-involved developments. Background and context The city faced recurring stormwater flooding, heat island effects and deteriorating public space quality in its central district. It implemented a large-scale stream restoration project, integrating climate-resilient design elements, such as vegetated banks, permeable surfaces and adaptive water channels, to manage runoff, reduce temperatures and restore ecological function. Solutions deployed The project transformed over 5 km of covered waterway into a multifunctional urban parkway. Flood resilience was embedded through stormwater retention basins, widened channels and vegetated edges. The restored corridor also served as an urban cooling zone, pedestrian spine and ecological habitat. Impact Post-restoration, land prices and commercial property values within a short radius of the corridor increased by approximately 30–50% compared to pre-project benchmarks and doubled the rate of property increases in other areas of the city. Local businesses reported increased foot traffic, and microclimate monitoring showed meaningful reductions in ambient temperatures. While private investors were not involved in the initial project, the results provide a compelling case for embedding similar nature-based climate resilience features into future developments in which commercial stakeholders can directly capture the resulting asset uplift. Source: Landscape Performance Series. (n.d.). Cheonggyecheon Stream Restoration Project. https://www.landscapeperformance.org/case-study- briefs/cheonggyecheon-stream-restoration-project. Ultimately, these archetypes help to identify engagement models in different contexts, whether the driver is protection, value creation or public impact. However, motivation and business value identification are just the first steps towards success. To unlock the collaboration opportunities, public and private stakeholders would need to work together to define shared objectives, clarify risk and return expectations, and co-design delivery approaches that reflect their respective values and strengths. When structured well, these collaborations can deliver climate resilience solutions at scale in a financially viable, socially beneficial and climate-resilient way. The Resilience Opportunity: Unlocking Climate Resilience through Public-Private Collaboration 15