Solution Develop a credit that recognizes both the carbon and the flood-reduction benefits of protecting and restoring coastal wetlands, so that the resilience value of a natural system carries a recognized financial value across the finance ecosystem rather than being captured only as carbon. Key challenge Mangroves, seagrasses and salt marshes provide a protective barrier against incoming coastal storms, but that resilience value is not captured across financial actors - there is no recognized financial value for the flood-reduction benefit that insurers, lenders and investors can act on. Context Coastal wetlands deliver multiple benefits simultaneously, including carbon sequestration and storm surge attenuation. Carbon markets already price the first; nothing prices the second. The result is that conservation and restoration are financed, if at all, on the carbon case alone, while the flood risk reduction that most directly affects property losses and insurability goes unrecognized. The challenge is creating a recognized financial value for the resilience benefits of coastal wetlands that actors across the finance ecosystem will accept. Solution in practice The Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA) is partnering with The Nature Conservancy and AXA XL, an insurance company, to create Blue Carbon Resilience Credits for mangrove ecosystems in the Caribbean. The aim is to allow corporations to offset their carbon footprint while also supporting resilience by reducing flooding in highly vulnerable coastal areas through wetland conservation and restoration. Based on a pre-feasibility study across two sites covering 10,000 hectares of mangroves, ORRAA estimates that restoring these sites could avoid more than USD 140 million a year in property damages and reduce flood risk for more than 750 people. The Nature Conservancy is now working with local partners to establish a recognized baseline for the project, including updated mangrove site maps, and is examining blended finance mechanisms that bring actors together to scale additional projects. Impact / outcome Restoring 10,000 ha of mangroves could avoid USD 140m+ a year in property damage and reduce flood risk for 750+ people (pre-feasibility). Next steps Blue Carbon Resilience Credits now need to be adopted by additional actors to scale the initiative across additional sites. The Nature Conservancy is working with local partners to establish a recognized baseline for the project, including updated mangrove site maps, and is examining blended finance mechanisms that bring actors together to scale additional projects. The playbook identifies application to other perils as the area where further innovation is required: the resilience credits offer an approach that could be extended to other perils, and excessive rain may be particularly well suited to this, since municipalities typically hold information on drainage capacity which could support the development of comparable metrics for surface water resilience, thereby incentivizing further investments. Under action area 4c the playbook also notes that AXA and SCOR have explored insurance products designed around nature restoration, where the insured asset is the ecosystem itself and the policy incentivizes the ongoing management that keeps it functioning as a risk buffer - a principle replicable wherever a natural system performs a protective function that can be measured, verified and credited. Organizations involved Authoring: World Economic Forum; Marsh Actors: Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA); The Nature Conservancy; AXA XL Implementation partners Insurers; Civil Society Organizations; Investors & Banks; Data Providers; Regulators & Policymakers