Climate Bonds Resilience Taxonomy (CBRT)

The Climate Bonds Resilience Taxonomy (CBRT) establishes a science-based classification system to direct capital toward climate resilience. It categorizes investments into four types—adapting measures, adapted activities, enabling measures, and enabling activities—and organizes them across seven thematic areas. To prevent greenwashing, the CBRT requires investments to demonstrate a 'Substantial Contribution' to resilience, manage maladaptation risks, and 'Do No Significant Harm' (DNSH) to climate mitigation and other environmental goals. The methodology emphasizes a graduated screening approach, ranging from automatically eligible investments to complex local threshold assessments, and ensures interoperability with the EU Taxonomy and MDB Joint Methodology.

• The CBRT identifies four distinct investment types to ensure a comprehensive coverage of resilience efforts: adapting measures (interventions within an activity), adapted activities (resilient economic activities), enabling measures (interventions that make other activities resilient), and enabling activities (production of resilience solutions).
• Eligible costs for resilience financing differ by investment type: for adapting measures, adapted activities, and enabling measures, only the costs directly associated with the resilience intervention are eligible; however, for enabling activities, the entire cost of the activity is eligible.
• The taxonomy is organized into 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, further divided into 27 sectors and 69 subsectors.
• To qualify as a resilience investment, a project must meet three core requirements: it must make a 'Substantial Contribution' to climate resilience (defined as a 'discernible reduction in vulnerability to climate impacts in the investment context'), manage maladaptation risks, and 'Do No Significant Harm' (DNSH) to mitigation and other environmental objectives.
• The CBRT employs a graduated screening approach for adapting measures to reduce the assessment burden: some are 'automatically eligible' based on expert judgment, others require a 'technical specification check', and the most complex require 'investment-level assessment' against either global or local thresholds.
• Maladaptation is specifically defined as the risk of an unintended measurable increase in vulnerability or exposure within the investment context or the wider system, often resulting from physical climate risk uncertainty or miscalculation of system boundaries.
• The CBRT integrates gender as a cross-cutting element, using 'Gender-responsive' tags for investments intentionally designed to address gender-specific needs and 'Gender-relevant' tags for those with potential gender equality co-benefits.
• The framework is designed for interoperability with other major standards, including the EU Sustainable Finance Taxonomy (specifically the 2021 Climate Delegated Act), the MDB Joint Methodology for Tracking Climate Change Adaptation Finance, and the Common Framework of Sustainable Finance Taxonomies for Latin America and the Caribbean.

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} }