INNOSPHERE and FUTURE PROOFING AMERICA COLLABORATIVE Form Strategic Partnership to Address the Nation’s Persistent Disaster Challenges
Fort Collins, CO and Houston, TX – January 2025– Innosphere and The Colorado-Wyoming Climate Resilience Engine (CO-WY Engine) have partnered with the Resilience Innovation Hub’s Future Proofing America (FPA) Collaborative™ to emphasize the critical need for pre-disaster risk mitigation and building Resilience through rapid deployment of novel technologies, equipment, and data platforms.
The Western United States has experienced the severe consequences of persistent drought and wildfire cycles, causing multi-billion dollar public and private sector financial, economic, and societal impacts. The increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters have led to rising insurance costs and significant rebuilding efforts, highlighting the urgent need for proactive measures to protect communities and infrastructure.
The FPA Collaborative aims to develop innovative solutions and strategies for investing in resilient assets, facilities, and infrastructure through enhanced risk mitigation standards. The Climate Resilience Engine’s complimentary focus on water-related challenges responds to urgent demands for alternative technical, scientific, and engineered solutions for public and private water systems serving residential, industrial, and commercial sectors. “The CO-WY Engine is increasingly focusing on the finance impact to communities from persistent disaster threats,” said Mike Freeman. “Our collaboration with RFA is a natural extension of the Engine’s work.”
Richard Seline, Executive Director of the Future Proofing America Collaborative and the Resilience Innovation Hub, states, “Aligning with Innosphere’s nationally-recognized technology and innovation ecosystem as well as its role in leading the National Science Foundation’s Climate Resilience Engine accelerates our common objectives for Future Proofing America. The current inefficient response-recovery-rebuild from ever-increasing number of billion-dollar weather events requires us to be in the forefront of a massive pivot in risk exposure.”
The Hub, Collaborative, and ROAR Partners are forming the Resilience Community Trust and the Resilience Endeavor Fund to leverage public, private, and philanthropic resources, pivoting the nation’s risk profile for employers, industries, communities, neighborhoods, and families through direct investment in retrofitting and new development of assets, facilities, infrastructure for the most-in-need, most-at-risk locations.
“We are honored to have the Climate Resilience Engine as a powerful source of innovation and investment, proving the value of resilience as a financial and economic force multiplier,” noted Anthony Kuczinski, former CEO of Munich Re US and Senior Advisor to the FPA Collaborative. “By leveraging past lessons-learned with new pilot-demonstration projects, Innosphere and the Climate Resilience Engine align with our intent to unleash millions of alternative investment dollars and accelerate past the handwringing and analysis-paralysis that limits our national innovation capacity!”
Key Areas of FPA Research and Design Phase Supported by the Climate Resilience Engine, especially for water generation, management, reuse, and similar opportunities:
- Addressing the fiscal and financial impacts of repetitive natural disasters.
- Encouraging proactive investment to mitigate economic and societal costs.
- Incentivizing insurance, reinsurance, mortgage, and public finance resources into a new resilience capital pool.
- Achieving a 1:6 or better cost-benefit and return-on-investment through deployment of technologies embedded on, in, or adjacent to residential, commercial, industrial, and public sector assets.
- Building resilient communities and infrastructure with a focus on thriving rather than just surviving.
About the Resilience Innovation Hub, Future Proofing America Collaborative™, ROAR Partners ROAR Partners (www.roarpartners.co) and the Resilience Innovation Hub (www.resilienceinnovationhub.org) have launched the Collaborative to focus on systematic mitigation of catastrophe risks, starting with hurricanes and tornadoes, and expanding to floods, wildfires, and earthquakes. The Collaborative leverages the Resilience Data Exchange’s 32 billion data points for unique insights and forecasting. For additional information: [email protected] | [email protected] | (703) 608-3000
About the Colorado – Wyoming Climate Resilience Engine: Led by Innosphere and funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the CO-WY Engine is a collaborative initiative focused on driving innovation in climate resiliency and sustainability across the Colorado-Wyoming region. The CO-WY Engine brings together a diverse network of partners to develop and commercialize technologies that address critical environmental challenges, foster economic growth and enhance community well-being. Visit www.co-wyengine.org for more information