Climate change and sustainability

MSC’s Climate Change and Sustainability (CCS) practice helps governments, financial institutions, development partners, and enterprises turn climate ambition into action. Our work spans four integrated areas: climate finance, decarbonization, disaster management, and energy systems. We focus on resilience and last-mile delivery.

We support clients with services such as climate-risk and vulnerability assessments; climate finance and investment readiness; climate-linked financial products; decarbonization strategies; disaster-risk financing and resilience planning; electric mobility; renewable and distributed energy solutions; and climate-smart agriculture.

We also strengthen the policies, systems, and institutions that enable climate action at scale. Our work includes green taxonomies, climate finance policies and strategies, investment pipeline development, climate data and MRV systems, and institutional capacity building.

Our experience spans South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and Africa. We work across countries such as India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Cambodia, Fiji, Vietnam, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Mozambique.

Climate change consulting helps organizations understand climate risks and opportunities as well as turn them into practical decisions, investments, and action. At MSC, we broadly organize our climate change work into four areas:

1. Climate finance: We provide structured finance and upstream advisory to development finance institutions (DFIs). We also support financial service providers (FSPs) with climate-linked products, processes, and financing mechanisms;
2. Decarbonization: We support the private sector and policymakers who seek to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Our work covers agriculture, infrastructure, the circular economy, and just transition;
3. Disaster management: We support policy development, disaster risk financing, and action planning, including heat action plans;
4. Energy: We support electric vehicle (EV) business models, supply chains, and financing. We also develop renewable energy solutions, particularly for community-led enterprises.

Across these areas, we combine research, financial expertise, policy support, and implementation expertise. We focus on solutions that work at scale and deliver benefits to last-mile communities.

MSC works across the climate finance ecosystem to help move capital from capital providers to inclusive financial institutions and, ultimately, to climate-vulnerable communities and businesses.

Our work spans four levels:

• Ecosystem and policy enablers: We work with governments, multilateral institutions, regulators, and other ecosystem partners to strengthen the enabling environment for climate finance and investment. Our work includes policy and regulatory mapping and alignment; green taxonomies and climate finance frameworks; investment readiness; pipeline development; and institutional capacity building. This work creates the policy, institutional, and market conditions that help capital to flow effectively to climate solutions and vulnerable communities;
• With development finance institutions (DFIs) and other capital providers: We support the design of blended and structured financing mechanisms that de-risk capital for inclusive lending institutions. These mechanisms enable fit-for-purpose capital and help unlock greater flows of climate finance to the last mile;
• With financial institutions and financial service providers (FSPs): We work with institutions to understand their existing portfolios and climate exposure. We also strengthen their understanding of climate risks, and design climate finance products as well as lending approaches suited to their clients. We strengthen internal processes to identify, assess, and finance climate-related opportunities. This includes improving the bankability of loans and portfolios;
• With end beneficiaries: We engage directly with communities, smallholder farmers, low-income households, as well as micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). We seek to understand how climate change affects them, their financing and adaptation needs, as well as the products and delivery models that best serve them.

This approach allows MSC to connect capital supply, financial institutions, and last-mile climate needs. It helps make climate finance more accessible and effective.

Climate resilience requires organizations to understand climate risks, strengthen adaptive capacity, and embed resilience into policies, investments, and operations. MSC helps governments, financial institutions, and development partners assess climate risks and implement practical resilience measures across sectors.

Our work includes climate vulnerability assessments, resilience planning, climate risk analytics, adaptation strategies, resilient infrastructure planning, climate-resilient agriculture, and disaster risk management. We support this work through evidence-based research, digital tools, and implementation support.

MSC has supported organizations such as BURO Bangladesh and worked across Kenya, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Tanzania. Our work identifies scalable pathways to reach vulnerable communities through inclusive climate finance. This work helps strengthen resilience and support vulnerable communities in changing climate conditions.

Monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) refers to the systems and processes that measure, track, report, and verify climate-related data and progress. MRV helps stakeholders understand whether climate actions deliver the intended results. It also supports credible reporting on areas such as decarbonization, carbon finance, nationally determined contributions (NDCs), as well as environmental, social, and governance (ESG).

MSC supports governments, financial institutions, and other stakeholders to strengthen the data, tools, and systems they need to understand climate risks, track climate action, and inform planning and decision-making. Our work includes the development of climate-risk assessment tools, portfolio stress-testing approaches, digital MRV systems, and systems for tracking decarbonization as well as climate commitments. We focus on making climate data more accessible, usable, and credible for both reporting and action.

MSC works across four levels: international and regional ecosystems to national; sub-national; and local governments. We strengthen the policies, strategies, institutions, and capabilities that advance climate action.

• International and regional: We work with multilateral and development partners and other ecosystem actors to strengthen the enabling environment for climate action. We support regional cooperation and knowledge exchange, and help align stakeholders and financing pathways around shared climate priorities;
• National: We support governments with national climate strategies and planning; policy and regulatory analysis; climate finance frameworks; green taxonomies; climate-responsive budgeting; as well as sectoral adaptation and decarbonization strategies. We also support ministries and institutions to strengthen their capacity to implement these frameworks;
• Sub-national: We help states, provinces, and districts translate national climate priorities into context-specific plans, investment priorities, and implementation approaches. This includes climate adaptation and resilience planning;
• Local government: We support local governments to identify local climate risks and priorities and translate them into action plans, projects, and implementation mechanisms. We also build capacity to strengthen local institutions.

Across these levels, our role is to connect policy, planning, financing, and implementation to help institutions move from climate ambition to action. MSC has supported climate finance policy and institutional capacity building across six Asia-Pacific countries. We also contributed to district-level climate adaptation planning in Jharkhand and Odisha, India.

MSC is a thematic leader on climate change. It works with the mechanisms created by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). MSC co-chairs the CIFAR Alliance to promote practical climate innovations for people most exposed to climate risk. 

Climate Innovation for Adaptation and Resilience Alliance (CIFAR Alliance): MSC co-chairs two of its co-labs: 

• Climate Resilient Agriculture (CRAg): builds collaborative initiatives that use innovation to make agri-food systems more climate resilient, with a focus on smallholder farmers, especially women. 

• Elevating the Voices of Affected People (EVAP): brings the experience of climate-affected communities into the design of adaptation and resilience solutions. 

UNFCCC-mandated mechanisms 

• Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN): the implementation arm of the UNFCCC Technology Mechanism. As a member, MSC contributes expertise on climate technology, adaptation and resilience. 

• Santiago Network for Loss and Damage (SNLD): the UNFCCC body set up at COP25 to bring technical assistance to developing countries and communities facing climate-related loss and damage. As a member, MSC contributes expertise on loss and damage, adaptation and resilience. 

MSC brings field evidence from its work on social, economic and financial inclusion into global climate action, and brings global tools and technical support back to the stakeholders it works with.