Climate Proofers

Could understanding the value of resilience be the route to riches in a climate-changed world?

Hunter Maats is betting his career on it.

In this final episode of our New York Climate Week interview series, the CEO of Resilience Investments — a real estate asset manager — digs into the climate and affordability factors causing people (and capital) to flee the Sunbelt for the Great Lakes, and what this means for US housing markets.

He also lays out the case for forward-looking, climate-informed investing in real assets, and why a resilience-first approach should replace the uncomfortable duality of ESG analysis and traditional financial modeling

If you want to understand the next big shift in real estate and investment markets, this is the episode for you.

🔗 Learn about Resilience Investments HERE

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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected].

11/25/2025: This podcast was edited after publication to clarify the origin of Resilience Investments

At New York Climate Week, two letters were heard again and again: AI.

It's the world's hottest technology, with humongous potential to augment and accelerate a whole host of climate-positive actions. No wonder it was popular among the panelists and networkers crisscrossing Manhattan last month.

One proponent of AI in the climate space is today's guest, Krista Tukiainen, the Co-Founder of ClimateAligned — an AI-powered start-up that's democratizing sustainability data and climate assessments at a fraction of the price of the big incumbents.

She shares her thoughts on Climate Week and the changing language around climate investment, before drawing back the curtain on ClimateAligned — and explaining how tools like brief.green are lowering the cost of high-quality climate assessments and enabling the credible tracking of adaptation investments at scale.

Then she and Louie discuss why smaller AI-first teams may be the future of climate tech — and what business models can win in this new age.

🔗Learn more about ClimateAligned HERE

🔗Check out Brief.Green HERE

Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy.

Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected].

What does climate change mean for America's workforce?

In this fourth installment of our New York Climate Week interview series, David Leathers takes the mic to explain why employers need to treat climate risk as a health and productivity issue — not just an environmental one.

As Program Director of the National Commission on Climate and Workforce Health, David is helping companies connect the dots between extreme heat, worker well-being, and business performance. But as he explains, employers still have a long way to go to understand climate impacts, and to scale the necessary solutions.

🔗Learn more about the National Commission on Climate and Workforce Health HERE

Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy.

Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected].

Welcome to the third edition of our Climate Week NYC interview series!

Today, we have something for all the finance- and tech-heads among you.

In this episode, Louie sits down with Michael (Mike) Gulla, CEO and Co-Founder of Adaptive Insurance, to discuss how his company is bringing power outage insurance payouts to small businesses — fast.

Mike shares his insights from two decades in the insurance industry and explains why grid reliability is rapidly becoming a first-order financial risk for businesses. He also unpacks the explosion of interest in distributed energy, and why it reflects a fortress mentality among large companies eager to stay online no matter the weather.

Along the way, he makes the case for why parametric insurance isn't just a financial product, but a critical safety net amidst ongoing failures to harden our infrastructure for a climate-adjusted world.

If you're interested in how technology is shaping the future of climate risk insurance, this episode's for you.

Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy.

Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected].

For the next installment of our New York Climate Week interview series we have a double-header: Abby Ross, Founder & CEO of The Resiliency Company, and Joe Rozza, Chief Sustainability Officer at Ryan Companies.

Together, they share their reflections on Climate Week and the evolution of "resilience" as a theme with the corporate and investor crowd. Then, they unpack their collaboration on the new Commercial Real Estate Playbook — a first-of-its-kind, industry-driven blueprint for integrating resilience across the entire building value chain, from investors to insurers.

Abby also offers a lowdown on The Resiliency Company's pathbreaking Resilient Delta Fund — designed to help Los Angeles build back better and stronger against wildfire risks.

Whether you're in real estate, finance, or policy, there's something for everyone in this conversation.

🔗Learn about The Resiliency Company HERE

🔗 Learn about Ryan Companies HERE

Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy.

Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected].

In this episode, Louie sits down with Ben DeAngelo, Principal and Founder of Operation Future and former Director of the Office of Climate Adaptation and Sustainability at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Fresh from launching his new consultancy, Ben reflects on his decades-long federal career, as well as key milestones in the climate fight — from helping craft the landmark 2009 Endangerment Finding to coordinating the EPA's first adaptation strategy.

He shares his fresh perspective from outside government, including why municipal bonds might be a sleeping giant for local adaptation finance, how non-federal actors are keeping the climate agenda alive despite political headwinds, and why private actors may have more latitude to innovate on climate then their peers in the public sector.

Plus, he unpacks what's next for Operation Future — and how he plans to stay in the fight.

🔗Learn about Operation Future HERE

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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected].

*This episode of Climate Proofers is sponsored by Ignitia*

Weather intelligence is one of most exciting frontiers in adaptation and resilience tech.

But market solutions rub up against an uncomfortable paradox — the people who need weather intelligence the most are often those least able to access it.

It's a tension that today's guest, Andrew Lala, is very familiar with. As an international development and climate tech veteran with on-the-ground experience in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria, Andrew has seen first-hand the urgent need for farmers in developing countries to get a hold of hyper-local (and hyper-accurate) weather forecasts that empower them to adapt.

He's also seen how large, supposedly sophisticated businesses — from commodity traders to agrifood majors — are operating today without a data-first approach to weather risk mitigation.

These are all observations he's bringing to Ignitia, an AI-enabled weather intelligence company producing climate and weather intelligence tools for a dizzying array of clients, from African farmers to huge ports and logistical companies.

In this interview, he offers a blunt analysis of the weather intelligence space, explains why he thinks the market system around climate and weather data is "broken and fragmented", and gives us the behind-the-scenes story of how Ignitia became a finalist for the UN-backed AI for EW4All Innovation Challenge.

It's a must-listen for climate tech founders who want to learn from Ignitia's experiences, and for climate adaptation advocates curious about how AI can drive extreme weather resilience and preparedness within the world's most vulnerable communities.

Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy.

Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected].

The intersection of climate and finance is getting crowded, making it tougher for adaptation start-up founders to stand out.

Today's interviewee is betting there's room for a fresh offering targeting a particularly complex branch of the financial system: infrastructure.

Prashant Mupparapu, the founder of InfraSure, is building a platform to help infrastructure investors, owners, and their insurers navigate the rising costs and uncertainty associated with climate risk. Drawing on a 20-year career in energy and infrastructure finance, with experience at Citadel, Credit Suisse, and Blue Owl, Prashant believes his techie approach to infrastructure finance and risk management can stand out in the busy climate intelligence market.

In this conversation, he breaks down why financial institutions have traditionally downplayed resilience investments, and what innovative structures could compel increased engagement — like 'resilience credits'. He then explains the "risk gap" that InfraSure intends to fill, and why he believes tech should be an "enabler" rather than a "disruptor" in the climate-finance ecosystem.

He also talks about widening the aperture of adaptation investment, and the importance of empowering infrastructure owners to understand the pros and cons of "renting" resilience via insurance or "owning" it via hardening investments.

Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy.

Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected].

We spend most of our time in the built environment. If it's not designed with climate change in mind, then we all stand to lose. Our health, our wellbeing, our productivity — all can suffer if we're confined to spaces that can't handle higher temperatures.

Today's guest is working on multiple fronts to make the built environment more climate resilient. Andy Love is the Co-Founder of the sustainability consultancy Love Design Studio and community interest company Shade the UK. Through these organizations, he's pushing for changes in how buildings are designed, with an eye on promoting livable, climate-adapted spaces that center the people living in them.

He joins the pod to talk about the projects he's led on the dangers of heat in the UK — and the policies and design solutions that could help people cope better. He also unpacks the barriers to cooling Britain down and even dives into this summer's big question: should Brits embrace air conditioning?

🔗Links:

Read 'Building Heat-Resilient Neighbourhoods' from Shade the UK HERE

Read the 'Overheating Adaptation Guide for Homes' HERE

Read the Cooling Roadmap for the Greater London Authority and C40 Cities HERE

Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy.

Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected].

Where will the climate financial crisis hit first? Is it in corporate earnings? Equity prices? Home values?

Sustainability advocacy organization Ceres sees the storm breaking in the US$4trn municipal bond market, where cities and local governments raise cash to finance everything from new infrastructure to public transit systems.

In this episode of Climate Proofers, Steven Rothstein and Jake Rascoff from Ceres raise the climate alarm on this oft-forgotten corner of the financial system and make the case for why better climate risk disclosure from cities, states, and local agencies is now an investor (and issuer) imperative.

The conversation highlights the disconnect between known physical risks and what's actually being reported to investors, and makes the case for a standardized, forward-looking disclosure regime that can help communities attract capital for adaptation before disaster strikes.

With federal dollars for disaster response in question, insurance markets in retreat, and climate disasters growing in frequency and severity, Rothstein and Rascoff argue that municipalities can no longer afford to underplay material climate risks in their bond offerings.

If you're an investor, policymaker, or finance pro looking to better understand the climate perils facing the muni markets — this episode is for you.

🔗Links:

Read 'Leading with Transparency: A Guide to Strengthening Climate Disclosure and Resilience in the Municipal Bond Market' HERE

Read Ceres' report on insurance climate disclosure: 'The Measurement Gap: A Deep Dive into Climate Risk Reporting in the US Insurance Sector' HERE

Sign up for Ceres' next webinar on insurance HERE

Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy.

Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected].