Ecologic Institute is collaborating with the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and Ramboll Consulting on a project for the European Environment Agency (EEA) entitled "The Cost of Adaptation versus the Cost of Inaction for Europe." This follows up a 2020-project, "Overview of Accessibility of the Climate Change Adaptation Finance Data in Europe," also for the EEA.

The project consolidates information on adaptation costs and inaction costs in the EU. The project will support the preparation of a background report which accompanies a public briefing on the economics of adaptation that the EEA will prepare. Building on the results of the previous project, the background report will cover definitions of inaction costs, types of adaptation costs, describe the direct and ancillary benefits of adaptation, as well as outline recent research on the efficiency and effectiveness of adaptation. An important objective of the report is to suggest approaches for countries to operationalise the concept of "cost of adaptation versus cost of inaction."

The content of the background report will serve as the basis for developing a short annotated outline for the EEA briefing. The briefing will communicate the importance of knowledge about domestic adaptation finance, as well as indicating what countries can do to better to understand the effectiveness and efficiency of the measures in their national adaptation plans.

Finally, the project will support the EEA to refine a questionnaire for EEA Member States on financing climate adaptation, building on the previous project. The questionnaire serves as a means to identifying what adaptation finance information is available in the different member states. This revision will help the EEA with future work on adaptation expenditure and effectiveness.