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Resilience & Climate Adaptation 

Turning risk and uncertainty into resilience and long-term value 

Adaptation over time

Climate volatility, aging infrastructure, pollution, technological change and a growing population, among other factors, are placing unprecedented pressures on the natural world and human-built systems that support daily life.   

Jacobs combines climate science and engineering insight with digital innovation to identify vulnerabilities, assess risks and prioritize investments that strengthen operational continuity and long-term resilience for communities. Working across assets and operations, we advise on resilience policy and governance, develop risk-based adaptive plans and deliver engineered and nature-based responses to current and emerging threats, enabling organizations to adapt to and thrive in a changing world. 

50+ years

Delivering integrated resilience solutions across markets. 

1k+

Resilience-related projects in our portfolio. 

200+

Clients worldwide focused on planning and response to the full range of business and community risks. 

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Resilience Advisory

Supporting organizations to define clear resilience strategies that align vision, policy, funding and governance. We build adaptable frameworks that incorporate policy, regulatory and market requirements; reflect standards and operating models; flex with uncertainty; and support confident decision-making. We work with clients to establish the business case for resilience investment. 

Thames Barrier Jacobs

Resilient Solutions Delivery

Planning and delivering integrated measures that reduce natural hazards and other risks, protect communities and strengthen long-term asset performance across water, transportation and energy infrastructure for cities, manufacturing facilities, data centers and mines. 

passenger train in railway station

Integrating Resilience

Embedding resilience principles within the lifecycle of projects and programs we deliver, from planning and design through construction, operations and maintenance. We assess climate exposure, system vulnerabilities, operational dependencies and lifecycle performance to enable clients to make informed decisions that strengthen asset reliability and adaptability. Projects are designed to withstand future conditions and maintain service continuity while delivering sustained value over their full lifespan. 

farm, field, and house completely surrounded by water due to flood

Climate Risk and Vulnerability Analysis

Translating complex hazard and risk information into practical insight — delivering climate change projections, vulnerability assessments and risk analyses that inform adaptive design, capital planning, asset management strategies and investment decisions. 

man in hardhat with clipboard on production floor

Operational Resilience and Continuity

Strengthening business continuity and asset reliability through risk-informed planning, resilient asset management, preparedness exercises and emergency response strategies — enabling organizations to anticipate disruption and maintain critical functions, while recovering faster and building back stronger. 

looking at a cityscape through a forest

Climate and Nature Disclosures

Supporting clients to proactively manage climate risks and meet both stakeholder and regulatory disclosure requirements, aligned with national and international frameworks.  

Prioritizing resilience for better outcomes

Aligning risk, investment and adaptation to strengthen infrastructure, improve certainty and unlock long-term economic and social value. 

  • Sustainable Investment and Resource Advisory

    Risk-Informed Investment

    We enable clients to prioritize the right actions at the right time. By quantifying risk and linking it to financial and operational outcomes, we enable smarter capital allocation and avoid stranded or “at risk” infrastructure. 

  • Enabling resilient energy systems

    Integrated, System-Level Thinking

    Resilience doesn’t sit in silos. We connect climate science, engineering, policy and operations to deliver coordinated solutions that strengthen whole systems — from individual assets to city and national networks. 

  • Environment, Community and Social Value 

    Adaptation that Creates Value

    Resilience goes beyond protection — it’s also about anticipating and adapting to change. Our solutions enhance performance, provide greater investment certainty and unlock co-benefits from decarbonization, improved liveability and nature enhancement. We provide long-term economic and social value for communities and businesses. 

Climate risk, adaptation and resilience, explained 

Understanding how organizations assess risk, model future scenarios and strengthen resilience across assets, operations and systems. 

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Adaptation is the process of adjusting infrastructure, operations and communities to support current conditions, as well as prepare for future conditions. Future conditions may be driven by climate change, natural resource depletion, evolving societal expectations, and other factors.  

Resilience is the ability to anticipate, withstand, recover from and adapt to disruptive events and trends. These may result from extreme weather, climate change, operational or asset failures, public health crises or pandemics.  

In a rapidly changing world, adaptation and resilience strengthen communities’ opportunities to thrive, enable continuity of critical services and build long-term economic value. Adaptation and resilience are essential for communities and infrastructure to proactively mitigate hazards and ensure reliable performance, avoiding the cost and disruption of failures.

Risk is the effect of uncertainty on objectives. Organizations assess climate risks by: 

1. Identifying the ways in which physical and transitional hazards may interact with and disrupt a “system” and its capacity to satisfy business or community objectives. 

2. Considering how these hazards may change over the planning period or system operating life — using climate models and other scenario tools. 

3. Developing risk narratives or expectations that combine the causes, impacts and consequences of hazards interacting with the system(s) of interest. 

4. Assessing the consequence and likelihood of specific risks under current conditions and future scenarios. The combination of consequence and likelihood of risk and the organization’s risk appetite are used to determine risk severity. 

Risks may be assessed before and after adaptive measures are put in place to strengthen resilience. 

Climate scenarios are used in climate change disclosures and climate change impact, vulnerability and risk assessments. They are used to describe the future conditions under which impacts, vulnerabilities and risks may be assessed. 

Businesses improve operational resilience by strengthening their ability to prepare for, withstand and recover from disruptions. This includes conducting comprehensive risk assessments to identify vulnerabilities across operations, developing robust business continuity plans, implementing resilient asset management practices, assessing supply chain risks and maintaining effective emergency response capabilities. Embedding resilience into governance frameworks, technical standards and investment decisions further reduces exposure to disruption, accelerates recovery and supports continuity of critical operations. 

Digital tools support climate risk management by integrating climate data, geospatial intelligence and asset information into interactive dashboards and models. This enables organizations to visualize exposure, compare scenarios and prioritize investments based on quantified risk. Jacobs uses industry tools and a suite of in-house tools such as Flood Modeller, Flood IQ and Climate Risk Manager. We have also developed bespoke tools for clients ranging from adaptation planning platforms and vulnerability assessment tools to climate data portals.  

Organizations assess portfolio-level risk by screening assets against projected hazards, evaluating vulnerability and estimating possible operational and financial impacts. Portfolio screening identifies high-risk assets, enabling organizations to prioritize interventions and allocate resources efficiently across programs and geographies. 

  • Climate Risk Manager

    The global climate emergency is creating uncertainty for businesses around the world.

    Climate Risk Manager is a cloud-based platform that brings together global climate data and location intelligence, giving visual risk assessments that enable clients to make faster and more accurate decisions on where to invest limited resources and guard against climate risks.

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    ClimateandESGAdvisory

  • Flood Platform

    Enabling comprehensive flood risk understanding.

    Flood Platform provides essential features for flood risk understanding, including model management, visualization, simulation and analysis, reporting, collaboration and security compliance. By placing data in a single, central repository, it streamlines analysis and improves decision-making. Flood Platform accelerates project delivery and strengthens stakeholder support.

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    Stock image of a body of water through trees

  • Engaging to Adapt

    Building Climate Change into Decision Making.

    Developing a climate adaptation strategy for vulnerable communities requires more than hazard and impact modeling. Collaborating with those affected is critical to delivering a more resilient future.

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    Water Resources

Projects

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  • Jacobs works with clients to turn climate complexity into clarity — delivering practical, tailored, resilient and cost-effective solutions that address today’s challenges while safeguarding businesses, communities, infrastructure operators and the environment for the future
    Craig Clifton
    Craig Clifton
    Global Principal, Climate Change

  • Planning for the unexpected is what turns uncertainty into resilience and challenge into opportunity.
    Headshot of a smiling woman with dark brown, curly hair wearing a navy blue shirt and silver necklace
    Megan Ellis
    Global Principal, Business Continuity

  • Being pro-active is key to resilience. The time that is taken now to understand the range of hazards and dependencies that could impact a business or community, will always be beneficial with whatever challenges arise next.
    Adam Hosking
    Adam Hosking
    Global Solutions Director, Resilience and Climate Response

Meet the team

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Environmental

Water

Transportation

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