The Resilience Opportunity Unlocking Climate Resilience through Public Private Collaboration 2025

CASE STUDY 2 CONTINUED Public sector support in de-risking While RISCO aims to operate as a commercially viable enterprise, its early-stage development was enabled by strong public and philanthropic support. Conservation International and various philanthropic foundations served as the founding sponsors, ensuring ecological and community integrity while attracting early partners. Collectively, this collaboration provides the early risk absorption and institutional alignment needed to move RISCO from concept to market. It de-risked the business model at an early stage and laid the groundwork for scaling private investment into nature-based solutions. RISCO has formally launched operations in the Philippines following a detailed feasibility study and a successful small- scale pilot. With regulatory approvals secured, it is actively forming partnerships with local government units, academic institutions and civil society organizations. RISCO plans to expand from its current hub in the Philippines to other climate-vulnerable geographies across South-East Asia and Latin America, focusing on regions where mangrove restoration yields high risk reduction and carbon benefits. Key takeaways and implications RISCO’s early pilots demonstrate how ecosystem restoration, when paired with innovative revenue model design, aggregated local efforts and a suitable de-risking mechanism, can evolve from a donor-funded intervention into a self-sustaining climate resilience business model for the private sector. It reinforces and extends the principles in this paper and demonstrates the possibility of replicating them in other projects: –Monetizing climate resilience co-benefits opens new investment pathways. RISCO’s model unlocks value from restoration in ways applicable to other sectors; cities might apply similar logic to heat mitigation (via green infrastructure) or watershed services (via forest protection), creating layered revenue streams to support climate resilience financing. –Aggregating value as a platform of local stakeholders simplifies investment decisions. RISCO works directly with local communities and aggregates the needs in a central platform to seek development support. The model creates local economic opportunities (e.g. through support for mangrove-positive SMEs and community benefit-sharing mechanisms) reduces complexity and creates an investable platform, offering a replicable template for climate resilience initiatives in rural coasts or small island states with limited public support. –Blended finance is essential to unlocking early- stage investment. RISCO would not have been possible without NGO, philanthropic and concessional capital that underwrote early modelling, community engagement and product development. This reinforces the importance of upfront de-risking and soft capital to catalyse innovative, high-potential climate resilience models, particularly in emerging markets where resilience solutions are urgent but financially nascent. RISCO business model Impact investors Blue carbon SPV* PhilanthropyCoastal stakeholders Mangrove positive businesses Purchasers of insurance Communities Villages CitiesRISCO fund RISCO insuranceSenior tranche Junior tranche PROFIT SHARINGPROFITS TECHNICAL ASSISTANCEREVENUE SHARE PLUS PROFITINVESTMENT AND REPAYMENT PREMIUMSINSURANCECARBON CREDITSPROFIT SHARING GRANTS CONCESSIONAL DEBTINVESTMENT PREPAYMENT OPERATIONAL EXPENSES *special purpose vehicle Sources: The Earthshot Prize. (n.d.). RISCO; The Earthshot Prize. (n.d.). Unlocking Critical Finance for Climate & Economic Resilience; The Lab. (n.d.). Restoration Insurance Service Company (RISCO); Swiss Re. (n.d.). Conservation International: Mangroves pay their way; RISCO. The Resilience Opportunity: Unlocking Climate Resilience through Public-Private Collaboration 21