Climate Bonds Resilience Taxonomy (CBRT)

The Climate Bonds Resilience Taxonomy (CBRT) is a methodology designed to define, identify, and scale up investments for climate resilience and adaptation. It provides a classification system of activities and measures, supported by science-based screening criteria, to help financial institutions, governments, and corporates identify credible resilience investments and mitigate greenwashing.

• The CBRT categorizes investments into four distinct types to provide a robust framework for screening and determining eligible costs: adapting measures, adapted activities, enabling measures, and enabling activities. Adapting measures are specific interventions to make an activity more resilient, while adapted activities are economic activities that have integrated such measures. Enabling measures and activities focus on enhancing the resilience of other activities or systems.
• Eligible costs for resilience financing vary by investment type. For adapting measures, adapted activities, and enabling measures, only the costs directly associated with the resilience-specific intervention are eligible. In contrast, for enabling activities, the entire cost of the economic activity is considered eligible because its primary purpose is to enhance the resilience of other activities.
• The CBRT is structured around seven Climate Resilience Themes: Resilient Agrifood Systems, Resilient Cities & Settlements, Resilient Health Systems, Resilient Industry & Commerce, Resilient Infrastructure, Resilient Natural Systems, and Resilient Social Systems. This structure is further detailed into 27 sectors and 69 subsectors, which are mapped to the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC) to ensure global comparability.
• To qualify as a resilience investment, the CBRT requires three screening conditions: a Substantial Contribution to climate resilience, the management of maladaptation risks, and a 'Do No Significant Harm' (DNSH) approach to climate mitigation and other environmental objectives. A Substantial Contribution is defined as a 'discernible reduction in vulnerability to climate impacts in the investment context'.
• The CBRT employs a graduated approach to screening criteria for adapting measures to reduce the assessment burden. Some measures are 'automatically eligible' if they have low maladaptation risk and deliver contributions across broad contexts. Others require a technical specification check, an investment-level assessment against a global threshold, or an assessment against a local threshold.
• The taxonomy incorporates gender as a cross-cutting element, recognizing that climate impacts disproportionately affect different gender groups. It uses a tagging system to identify investments as 'Gender-responsive' (intentionally designed to address gender-specific needs) or 'Gender-relevant' (potential to deliver gender equality co-benefits).
• The CBRT is designed for inter-operability with other major frameworks, including the EU Sustainable Finance Taxonomy, the MDB Joint Methodology for Tracking Climate Change Adaptation Finance, and the Common Framework of Sustainable Finance Taxonomies for Latin America and the Caribbean. It aligns its process-based approach for economic activities with the EU Taxonomy's Technical Screening Criteria.

APA

Climate Bonds Initiative (n.d.). Climate Bonds Resilience Taxonomy (CBRT). https://www.climatebonds.net/files/documents/Updated-Climate-Bonds-Resilience-Taxonomy-Methodology.pdf

Chicago

Climate Bonds Initiative. Climate Bonds Resilience Taxonomy (CBRT). n.d. https://www.climatebonds.net/files/documents/Updated-Climate-Bonds-Resilience-Taxonomy-Methodology.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Climate Bonds Initiative |title=Climate Bonds Resilience Taxonomy (CBRT) |url=https://www.climatebonds.net/files/documents/Updated-Climate-Bonds-Resilience-Taxonomy-Methodology.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{climatebondsinitiativendclimate, author = {{Climate Bonds Initiative}}, title = {{Climate Bonds Resilience Taxonomy (CBRT)}}, institution = {Climate Bonds Initiative}, url = {https://www.climatebonds.net/files/documents/Updated-Climate-Bonds-Resilience-Taxonomy-Methodology.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }