The Triple Dividend of Building Climate Resilience: Taking Stock, Moving Forward

This WRI working paper analyzes the 'triple dividend of resilience' (TDR) framework for climate change adaptation investments, arguing that benefits often exceed traditional 'avoided loss' calculations. The paper emphasizes that economic, social, and environmental benefits frequently accrue regardless of whether a disaster occurs, which can improve benefit-cost ratios and facilitate increased financing for adaptation in developing countries.

• The Triple Dividend of Resilience (TDR) framework categorizes the benefits of adaptation investments into three types: avoided losses (first dividend), induced economic or development benefits (second dividend), and additional social and environmental benefits (third dividend).
• The second and third dividends are highly significant because they accrue regardless of whether a climate risk materializes. These dividends can be larger than the value of avoided losses and can independently produce benefit-cost ratios (BCRs) greater than 1.
• Empirical analysis of specific case studies shows that the second and third dividends often constitute the majority of total benefits. In coastal flooding and drought management cases, over half of total benefits were attributed to the second dividend, while in urban stormwater management using nature-based solutions, over half were associated with the third dividend.
• Integrating all three dividends into evaluations results in higher benefit-cost ratios than typically assumed, which can help governments and the private sector increase access to project finance, improve project design, and enhance ex post monitoring and evaluation.
• To scale up climate adaptation, the paper proposes five strategies: growing the evidence base through longitudinal monitoring, improving methodology and data collection, building analytical capacity for TDR analysis, communicating data for decision-making, and creating a standardized TDR framework for governments and donors.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). The Triple Dividend of Building Climate Resilience: Taking Stock, Moving Forward. https://www.wri.org/research/triple-dividend-building-climate-resilience-taking-stock-moving-forward

Chicago

World Resources Institute. The Triple Dividend of Building Climate Resilience: Taking Stock, Moving Forward. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/triple-dividend-building-climate-resilience-taking-stock-moving-forward.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=The Triple Dividend of Building Climate Resilience: Taking Stock, Moving Forward |url=https://www.wri.org/research/triple-dividend-building-climate-resilience-taking-stock-moving-forward |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendtriple, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{The Triple Dividend of Building Climate Resilience: Taking Stock, Moving Forward}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/triple-dividend-building-climate-resilience-taking-stock-moving-forward}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }