Trend analysis: Critical infrastructure resilience — where the value pools are (and who captures them)

The United States experienced 27 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in 2024—triple the 44-year historical average—with 99.5% of congressional districts affected by at least one federally declared disaster for extreme weather (NOAA, 2024). This escalating pattern of climate-driven infrastructure damage has transformed resilience from an aspirational goal into an urgent operational imperative, creating substantial value pools for founders, investors, and operators who can deliver solutions at scale.

Why It Matters

The financial case for infrastructure resilience has never been clearer. Global disaster costs reached $162 billion in the first half of 2025 alone, while the UN's Global Assessment Report 2025 estimates that total disaster costs—including cascading and ecosystem impacts—approach $2.3 trillion annually, roughly 10x higher than official direct loss figures. For the United States specifically, climate-induced disasters now drive over $92 billion in annual damages, with trajectories indicating continued acceleration.

The investment response is equally significant. Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and related legislation, the federal government has made approximately $50 billion available specifically for climate resilience and disaster mitigation. The broader infrastructure investment package totals $711.8 billion, with $580.6 billion available through FY2025. As of December 2024, $275.1 billion (47%) had been obligated and $119.4 billion (21%) spent—indicating both substantial progress and significant remaining opportunity for founders positioning solutions.

For entrepreneurs and investors, the compelling economics are straightforward: disaster resilient infrastructure adds 5-15% to upfront costs but delivers 7-12x returns over asset lifecycles. Program-level analyses show even stronger ratios—300% savings for drought resilience investments and 1,200% savings for storm resilience programs in vulnerable regions. The OECD, World Bank, and UN estimate that achieving Paris Agreement goals requires $6.9 trillion in annual sustainable infrastructure investment by 2030, creating market opportunities across every major infrastructure category.

Key Concepts

Climate Risk Assessment Frameworks

Effective resilience investment requires quantified understanding of physical climate risks—flood, drought, wildfire, extreme heat, and sea-level rise—at the asset level. Leading frameworks integrate climate projections with infrastructure vulnerability assessments to prioritize hardening investments. FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Planning requirements and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) have established baseline methodologies, while commercial providers like Jupiter Intelligence and First Street Foundation offer granular risk data.

Resilience Return on Investment (R-ROI)

Traditional infrastructure investment analysis often fails to capture resilience benefits, which manifest as avoided losses rather than direct revenue. R-ROI frameworks incorporate probabilistic damage modeling, business interruption costs, and insurance premium impacts to demonstrate that resilience investments deliver positive returns even before considering broader economic and social benefits.

Adaptive Capacity and Redundancy

Resilient infrastructure systems maintain function during disruption through both hardening (resisting damage) and adaptation (recovering quickly). Redundancy in power, communications, and transportation networks enables continued operation when individual components fail. The National Security Memorandum 22 (NSM-22), issued in 2024, updated federal critical infrastructure policy for the first time in a decade to emphasize adaptive capacity alongside traditional protection.

KPI	Baseline (2023)	Current (2024-2025)	Target	Best-in-Class
Infrastructure Uptime During Events	92%	94%	99%	99.9%
Recovery Time Objective (RTO)	72 hours	48 hours	<12 hours	<4 hours
Climate Risk Integration (% assets)	35%	52%	90%	100%
Resilience Investment (% of capex)	3%	5%	12%	20%
Insurance Coverage Ratio	45%	52%	80%	95%
Redundant Power Coverage	28%	38%	75%	100%

What's Working

Federal Funding Deployment

The PROTECT Program has allocated $16+ billion for surface transportation resilience against climate hazards, with applications for FY2024-25 closing in February 2025. The Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program provides $1 billion ($200 million annually FY22-24) for hazard mitigation. These programs have funded flood-resistant highway elevations, seismically resilient bridges, and wildfire-defensible infrastructure across dozens of states.

Grid Resilience Investments

The Department of Energy has deployed $1.3+ billion through grid resilience programs serving 90+ million homes and businesses. Projects include transmission line undergrounding in wildfire-prone areas, automated restoration systems that reduce outage durations, and distributed energy resources that maintain power during grid failures. The 67 gigawatts of new grid capacity and 4,375+ miles of new transmission lines planned by 2031 will fundamentally improve energy infrastructure resilience.

Public-Private Partnerships

The Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) launched a 2025 Fellowship Programme with $56 million supporting 56 fellows across 12 countries on 20 innovative resilience projects. Domestically, partnerships between utilities, technology providers, and government agencies have accelerated deployment of AI-powered weather prediction, automated grid switching, and flood monitoring systems.

What's Not Working

Implementation Velocity

Despite substantial funding availability, actual deployment has lagged. Only 21% of Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds had been spent as of December 2024, reflecting capacity constraints in engineering, permitting, and project management. Local governments, responsible for 69% of climate-significant public investment in OECD countries, often lack technical expertise to access competitive federal programs.

Insurance Market Dysfunction

Climate risks have overwhelmed traditional insurance models in exposed regions. California's FAIR Plan exposure increased 42% between September 2024 and June 2025, reaching $650 billion as private insurers withdrew from high-risk areas. This creates a vicious cycle: without insurance, resilience investments lack clear financial returns, while without resilience investments, insurance becomes unavailable or unaffordable.

Coordination Challenges

Critical infrastructure systems are deeply interdependent—power outages cascade to water treatment, telecommunications, and transportation—yet resilience planning remains siloed by sector and jurisdiction. The NSM-22 update acknowledged this challenge but implementation guidance remains incomplete. Founders building cross-sectoral resilience solutions face fragmented customer relationships and unclear procurement pathways.

Key Players

Established Leaders

Jacobs Engineering Group provides comprehensive resilience planning and implementation services for water, transportation, and energy infrastructure. Their climate adaptation practice has delivered major projects including coastal protection systems and flood-resistant transportation networks.

Black & Veatch specializes in resilient infrastructure design for utilities, with particular strength in power grid modernization and water system hardening. Their engineering expertise spans the full project lifecycle from risk assessment through construction.

AECOM operates one of the world's largest infrastructure advisory practices, with climate resilience capabilities spanning risk assessment, adaptation planning, and program management for public and private clients globally.

Siemens Smart Infrastructure delivers building and grid automation systems that enhance resilience through intelligent load management, predictive maintenance, and automated response to disruption.

Emerging Startups

Jupiter Intelligence provides AI-powered climate risk analytics that enable asset-level risk quantification for infrastructure operators, insurers, and investors. Their platform translates climate projections into financial impact metrics.

One Concern applies digital twin technology to model infrastructure interdependencies and cascading failure scenarios, enabling resilience planning that accounts for systemic risks rather than isolated assets.

Technosylva develops wildfire behavior prediction and utility infrastructure protection systems, receiving significant investment from General Atlantic as wildfires increasingly threaten power systems and communities.

Key Investors & Funders

Breakthrough Energy Ventures has deployed over $2 billion into climate technology, including resilience-enabling investments in grid modernization, weather prediction, and distributed energy systems.

FEMA administers the BRIC program and Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, representing the largest federal funding source for local resilience projects.

Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Programs collectively provide $580+ billion through dozens of grant and loan programs, many with resilience requirements or preferences that advantage solutions addressing climate risks.

Real-World Examples

Example 1: Duke Energy Grid Hardening

Duke Energy has invested $1.5 billion in grid resilience across the Carolinas and Florida, implementing automated switching that restores power within minutes rather than hours, undergrounding distribution lines in storm-prone areas, and deploying distributed energy resources that maintain critical facility power during extended outages. Following Hurricane Helene in 2024, Duke's resilience investments enabled restoration of 1 million customers within 24 hours—half the time required for comparable storms a decade earlier. The utility has demonstrated that resilience investments reduce both operating costs (through avoided emergency response) and customer impacts (through shorter outage durations).

Example 2: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

Following the devastating 2025 wildfires that destroyed over 16,000 structures, LADWP accelerated deployment of fire-resistant infrastructure and distributed generation. Inquiries for fire-resistant modular construction surged 300%+ post-disaster. The utility implemented automated grid sectionalizing that isolates fire-threatened areas while maintaining power to unaffected regions, reducing both fire ignition risk and service disruption. California regulators now offer 20% insurance discounts for homes meeting enhanced fire-resilient building codes, creating market incentives for resilience adoption.

Example 3: New York City Flood Resilience Program

NYC's $20 billion flood resilience program, launched after Hurricane Sandy, has deployed deployable flood barriers, elevated critical infrastructure, and redesigned stormwater systems to handle extreme precipitation. The East Side Coastal Resiliency project protects 110,000 residents through a 2.4-mile integrated flood protection system combining levees, berms, and tide gates. Cost-benefit analyses demonstrate 4:1 returns on resilience investments, with protected property values maintaining stability while comparable unprotected areas experience valuation declines.

Action Checklist

Conduct asset-level climate risk assessment covering flood, wildfire, extreme heat, and wind exposure using established methodologies
Quantify business interruption costs from historical and modeled disruption scenarios to establish baseline R-ROI potential
Map federal and state funding programs applicable to planned resilience investments, noting application deadlines and matching requirements
Evaluate insurance market conditions and work with brokers to understand how resilience investments affect coverage availability and pricing
Develop redundancy strategies for critical dependencies including power, communications, and supply chain
Establish partnerships with engineering firms, technology providers, and peer organizations to accelerate capability development
Create monitoring and evaluation frameworks to demonstrate resilience investment returns and inform ongoing prioritization

FAQ

Q: What federal funding programs are most relevant for infrastructure resilience projects? A: The primary programs include BRIC (Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities) for hazard mitigation, PROTECT for surface transportation resilience, DOE Grid Resilience programs for energy infrastructure, and EPA State Revolving Funds for water system upgrades. Each has distinct eligibility criteria, matching requirements, and application processes. The Georgetown Climate Center maintains a comprehensive tracker of IIJA resilience funding opportunities with program-specific guidance.

Q: How do founders approach the long sales cycles typical of infrastructure markets? A: Infrastructure markets require patience but offer substantial rewards for persistent founders. Successful approaches include partnering with established engineering firms who have existing customer relationships, targeting regulated utilities where resilience investments may receive favorable rate treatment, and focusing on pilot projects that demonstrate ROI before scaling. Federal funding availability has created urgency among potential customers, shortening decision cycles for well-positioned solutions.

Q: What is the relationship between resilience investments and insurance availability? A: Insurance markets are increasingly using resilience investments as underwriting criteria. Properties meeting enhanced building codes receive premium discounts of 15-25% in many markets, while unmitigated properties in high-risk areas face coverage restrictions or unavailability. For commercial infrastructure, demonstrating resilience investments can be essential for obtaining coverage at affordable rates. However, the insurance industry's climate modeling capabilities remain limited, creating opportunities for startups that can quantify and communicate risk reduction.

Q: How should organizations prioritize among multiple resilience investment options? A: Prioritization should consider exposure (likelihood and severity of climate hazards), vulnerability (susceptibility of specific assets to damage), criticality (importance to operations and dependents), and cost-effectiveness (return on resilience investment). The FEMA Benefit-Cost Analysis toolkit provides standardized methodologies. Generally, investments protecting critical single points of failure—primary substations, water treatment facilities, communication nodes—deliver the highest returns.

Q: What role do digital twins play in resilience planning? A: Digital twins enable modeling of infrastructure system behavior under stress, including cascading failures across interdependent systems. Organizations like One Concern and Autodesk have developed platforms that simulate flood impacts, power outage propagation, and transportation network degradation. These tools support both design optimization (identifying highest-impact investments) and operational planning (developing response protocols for specific scenarios). Founders building resilience solutions should consider digital twin integration as a path to demonstrating value.

Sources

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. "Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: 2024." https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/
U.S. Government Accountability Office. "Infrastructure Grants: Status of Funding to Tribes, States, Localities, and Territories as of December 31, 2024." GAO-25-107243. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-107243
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. "Global Assessment Report (GAR) 2025." https://www.undrr.org/gar/gar2025
Department of Homeland Security. "Strategic Guidance and National Priorities for U.S. Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience 2024-2025." https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2024-06/24_0620_sec_2024-strategic-guidance-national-priorities-u-s-critical-infrastructure-security-resilience.pdf
Georgetown Climate Center. "Resilience in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act." https://www.georgetownclimate.org/adaptation/toolkits/resilient-infrastructure-investments/
OECD. "Massive investment is needed in sustainable infrastructure to build climate change resilience." April 2024. https://www.oecd.org/en/about/news/press-releases/2024/04/massive-investment-is-needed-in-sustainable-infrastructure-to-build-climate-change-resilience.html