Imagine you're a bank holding billions in investments — factories, energy companies, real estate. Now a flood hits, or carbon taxes double. How much money do you lose? Right now, most banks can't answer that question with real numbers. CLIMEX built a software tool that maps out exactly which companies in your portfolio are exposed to climate risks — heat waves, floods, new regulations — and puts a price tag on that exposure. Think of it like a weather forecast, but for your investment portfolio.
Financial institutions cannot accurately price climate risks in their portfolios. When floods, droughts, or carbon regulations hit, banks and investors discover too late how exposed their holdings are. Existing risk models were not built for climate scenarios, leaving a gap between growing regulatory pressure for climate disclosure and the actual ability to quantify that exposure.
A Software as a Service demonstration platform with interactive visualization showing climate risk exposure of example investment portfolios. The project also delivered a 12-month commercialization roadmap including patenting and start-up strategy.
If you are an asset manager dealing with growing pressure to quantify climate risks in your portfolio — this project developed a SaaS platform that analyzes climate exposure of individual firms across your holdings. The tool was piloted on example portfolios with a 3-partner consortium across 2 countries, combining financial network modeling with environmental economics.
If you are an insurer struggling to price climate-related risks in your underwriting — this project developed quantitative methods to assess how climate events impact individual firms and entire portfolios. Built on prior FET research (DOLFINS), the tool delivers detailed exposure data that can feed directly into actuarial models and risk pricing.
If you are an ESG software company looking for validated climate risk methodologies to integrate into your platform — this project produced a demonstration tool with interactive visualization on example portfolios. The consortium includes international leaders in financial network risk models and SaaS delivery, with a commercialization roadmap already in place.
The project pursued a patenting and start-up strategy with a 12-month commercialization roadmap. Pricing details are not published in the project data. Based on available project data, the tool was designed as a B2B SaaS product, which typically means subscription-based licensing.
The demonstration was piloted on example portfolios using publicly available information. The underlying methodology comes from the FET research project DOLFINS, which modeled risk and contract valuation across financial networks. Scaling to full institutional portfolios would depend on the commercial version.
The project explicitly pursued a patenting strategy as part of the commercialization roadmap. The coordinator, Universitat Zurich, had access to professional technology transfer advice via a dedicated organization. IP licensing terms would need to be discussed directly with the consortium.
The tool provides detailed quantitative information about climate risk exposure of individual firms and financial portfolios. This type of analysis directly supports regulatory requirements for climate-related financial disclosures. The consortium engaged with both private and public finance decision-makers during the project.
The project delivered a Software as a Service demo with an interactive platform. Based on available project data, the SaaS delivery model suggests it was designed as a standalone tool rather than requiring deep integration. The 3-partner consortium included 1 industry partner with SaaS expertise.
The project ended in October 2020 with a closed status. The commercialization roadmap included a start-up strategy, suggesting the team intended to continue development commercially. Contact with the consortium would clarify the current status of the commercial product.
The CLIMEX consortium is lean and commercialization-focused: 3 partners across Switzerland and France, with a 33% industry ratio (1 SME). Led by Universitat Zurich, the team combines academic expertise in financial network modeling and environmental economics with an industry partner experienced in SaaS delivery. The coordinator has access to professional technology transfer support. The consortium had already opened business dialogue with finance sector clients before the project ended — a strong signal that this moved beyond pure research into real market engagement.
University of Zurich, Department of Banking and Finance or similar — search for CLIMEX climate finance team
Want to connect with the CLIMEX team about licensing their climate risk tool? SciTransfer can organize an introduction and help you evaluate the fit for your portfolio.
