Deal to Decision: Financing Sustainable & Resilient Investments at NYGB
Friday, October 23, 2026 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM · 1 hr. (US/Eastern)
Finance and Business Models
Information
New York Green Bank is the largest state green bank in the US, with >$2.6B in cumulative commitments. In the 2024–2025 fiscal year, NYGB supported building decarbonization projects projected to deliver 1.4 million MMBTU in lifetime energy savings. As a mission-driven lender, NYGB aims to transform financing markets to accelerate New York State’s clean energy transition. As physical climate hazards intensify, a practical question has emerged: how should lenders keep capital flowing while enabling projects to remain insurable, operable, and financeable?
To address this, NY Green Bank has developed an enhanced due diligence approach that embeds physical climate risk into investment decision-making. The process combines a structured risk assessment (across multiple hazards, time horizons, and quantified consequences) with a set of practical adaptation “quick guides.” This combined approach helps deal teams translate climate risk into borrower questions and resilient design expectations that can be incorporated into underwriting and technical review.
In this interactive session, attendees will weigh in on a deal process, making decisions about how climate risk is evaluated and managed within investment due diligence without slowing or compromising NYGB’s mission-driven investment goals. We will go deep into a case study of a building decarbonization investment and its key climate risks. Participants will “join” an investment committee and receive a simplified risk brief and example asset-specific adaptation quick guide that translates climate risk into actionable borrower questions and mitigation options. Working in small groups, attendees will decide how to proceed: finance as-is, finance with resilience conditions, or require redesign.
The session will conclude with a “reveal” of how NYGB makes similar decisions in practice, including how climate risk can influence terms, technical requirements, and adaptation actions without compromising the need to invest in all NYS communities, including those on the climate frontlines.
To address this, NY Green Bank has developed an enhanced due diligence approach that embeds physical climate risk into investment decision-making. The process combines a structured risk assessment (across multiple hazards, time horizons, and quantified consequences) with a set of practical adaptation “quick guides.” This combined approach helps deal teams translate climate risk into borrower questions and resilient design expectations that can be incorporated into underwriting and technical review.
In this interactive session, attendees will weigh in on a deal process, making decisions about how climate risk is evaluated and managed within investment due diligence without slowing or compromising NYGB’s mission-driven investment goals. We will go deep into a case study of a building decarbonization investment and its key climate risks. Participants will “join” an investment committee and receive a simplified risk brief and example asset-specific adaptation quick guide that translates climate risk into actionable borrower questions and mitigation options. Working in small groups, attendees will decide how to proceed: finance as-is, finance with resilience conditions, or require redesign.
The session will conclude with a “reveal” of how NYGB makes similar decisions in practice, including how climate risk can influence terms, technical requirements, and adaptation actions without compromising the need to invest in all NYS communities, including those on the climate frontlines.
Learning Level
Intermediate
GBCI Rating System Specific Credit
Does Not Apply
Program
Track Session
Track
Finance and Business Models
Learning Objective #1
Identify how key physical climate hazards (e.g. flooding, extreme heat, wind, and wildfire) can materially affect building decarbonization upgrades e.g., electrification, energy efficiency retrofits, installation of solar and battery storage)
Learning Objective #2
Communicate the discrete levers that a lender can use to increase the resilience of its building decarbonization investments
Learning Objective #3
Formulate a set of borrower due diligence questions to investigate the resilience of a potential investment, and interpret the borrower’s responses
Learning Objective #4
Communicate the benefits and potential challenges inherent in using a high-level climate hazard screening tool for portfolio-level risk assessment
