---
title: how a city runs its own adaptation and resilience marketplace
canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/how-a-city-runs-its-own-resilience-marketplace
markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/how-a-city-runs-its-own-resilience-marketplace.md
subtitle: your adaptation plan already names the places that hold back heat and flood. here is how the parties who carry the risk pay for them before the bill
category: how-to
---

# how a city runs its own adaptation and resilience marketplace

*your adaptation plan already names the places that hold back heat and flood. here is how the parties who carry the risk pay for them before the bill*

A **resilience marketplace** for a city is where the risk-reduction work its adaptation plan already names gets paid for before the damage, not after. The city lists named work at named places. The parties who carry the risk fund it by a unit they already count. A public record shows who paid for what. The city runs the market; the pipes can be borrowed.

Start with the places. The canopy on the hottest ward, the marsh that takes the surge, the floodplain that holds the storm and the creek buffer that cools the street are there whether or not any city lists them. A resilience marketplace is how the utility, the hospital, the insurer and the port can pay toward their care before the bill arrives. **Ensurance** is rails a city can use instead of building its own. Neither the market nor the rails is the worth of the marsh.

This post is for the chief resilience officer, the climate or heat officer, the stormwater utility manager, and the business across the table that carries the risk.

:::johnson
**your adaptation plan is a list of places. the market pays them before the bill.** The plan already names the risks and the ground that holds them back. A marketplace lets the parties who carry those risks fund that ground on a public record, in a unit they already count.

[see a city group that is live today →](/groups/mumbai?from=guide)
:::

## what a resilience marketplace is

A city with an adaptation plan already has the first half of a market. The Global Covenant of Mayors counts 13,558 cities in 147 countries, about 1.2 billion people. Its signatories prepare a risk and vulnerability assessment, build an adaptation plan on it, and report progress on a regular cycle. C40, about 100 cities and more than 582 million people, runs networks on these risks, including Cool Cities and Urban Flooding.

So the risks are named (heat, flood, drought, storm surge) and so are the places that hold them back. What a plan does not carry by itself is a way for the parties who carry those risks to pay for the places. Today they pay after the damage, in their own budgets:

| who carries the risk | where the cost can land today |
|---|---|
| The water or stormwater utility | Overflows, pumping and repairs after the storm |
| The electric utility | The peak it has to serve on the hottest afternoons |
| The hospital | Heat and flood admissions it may treat after the fact |
| The insurer with the city's book | Claims it may pay after the loss |
| The port or the large employer | Downtime and lost working days it may face |

A resilience marketplace moves part of that spending to before. It is a list, a way to pay, and a record. It is not a new fund, a bond or an insurance product.

## cities already run markets like this

The idea is not new, and these programmes deserve the credit. None of them is a client of ours.

- **Washington, DC.** The District's Stormwater Retention Credit program defines one credit as one gallon of retention for one year. Private parties trade credits at prices they negotiate; the District's in-lieu fee acts as a ceiling and its price lock program as a floor. A city already runs a market for a unit of risk reduction.
- **The West Midlands.** The West Midlands Combined Authority launched its Nature Investment Hub in July 2026, with an initial pipeline of about £2m.
- **The North East of England.** The North East Carbon and Nature Marketplace launched in June 2025, led by the combined authority.

Each built its scheme for its own purpose, and none is a client of ours. What a resilience marketplace borrows from them is the idea that a public body can set up a market for local work.

## who lists, who pays, what the city runs

Three parties use the market, and they want different things.

| party | who that is | what they want |
|---|---|---|
| The city | The resilience, climate or heat office, often with parks and the stormwater utility | Money reaching the places in its adaptation plan every year, not once |
| The payor | A utility, hospital, insurer, port or large employer | Work it can name, see and report, tied to a risk it already carries |
| The steward | A parks department, land trust, community group or landowner | A way to list its work and be paid, with its name on the record |

The city's part cannot be handed off. It owns the list: which ward gets the canopy first, which marsh edge is ready, which floodplain pocket can be lowered this year. It screens what goes on the list against its plan. It holds the relationships with the payors. [What an adaptation marketplace lists](/guide/what-an-adaptation-marketplace-lists?from=guide) takes the listing one field at a time, and [who pays into a city's resilience market](/guide/who-pays-into-a-city-resilience-market?from=guide) takes the payors one role at a time.

## what the city borrows

The rest is pipes, and they already exist. On ensurance, a city can apply for a **group**, created after review: a named home for its market, like the live `.mumbai` group with 22 agents, `.boulder` with 33, `.tokyo` with 7, and `.la` with 2. For a city that has not opened one, the name would be a city group such as `.{city}`, recommended, not yet created on ensurance.

Inside the group, each listed project gets an **agent**, an account that holds value in the project's own name. Each project can carry a **certificate** line: a record that a named payor funded named work at a named place. Today a certificate is suggested and created after review. Proceeds route to the steward on a split, and the record sits on a public ledger anyone can read. The group page on ensurance.app lists every account in the group; a front end in the city's own name, and how a city or business buyer pays in its own currency, are scoped at contact. [Your city runs the market. The protocol is the rails](/guide/your-city-runs-the-market-the-protocol-is-the-rails?from=guide) walks the split between the two.

A city that borrows the rails also does not stand alone. Its market sits in the same protocol as cross-city syndicates (shared funding lines that carry one risk across cities), such as [`urban-heat.syndicate`](/urban-heat.syndicate?from=guide) and [`flood-resilience.syndicate`](/flood-resilience.syndicate?from=guide). The links are live; the depth between markets is still early.

## what a certificate is, and what it is not

A certificate records that a named payor funded named work at a named place. It is not an insurance policy, not a catastrophe bond, not an offset, not an adaptation or resilience credit under any standard, and not an investment. Whether the work lowers a payor's own losses is the payor's to measure. Nobody should promise a premium cut or a smaller claim because a certificate exists.

## build it in public, one rung at a time

A city can climb to a working market in four public rungs. First, a series like this one, written from the place, its people and its purposes, with real or clearly labelled hypothetical actors and instruments, and nothing minted. Second, the real instruments: the city's group, its first project accounts and certificate lines, a named steward, and a first payor who has said yes or no. Third, finding the ground: a shortlist of the parcels that do the work, with reasons. Fourth, underwriting: a valuation per parcel, the steward on the split, the payor's unit, and the first certificate funded. Each rung is public, and the next one starts only when the one before is done. This series is rung one. No parcel in it is underwritten, and no payor named in it has committed.

## adaptation or resilience?

Both words are on the market's name because cities use both. The difference matters to a budget office; [adaptation and resilience are not the same ticket](/guide/adaptation-and-resilience-are-not-the-same-ticket?from=guide) draws it. A marketplace can list work under either line.

## frequently asked questions

### what is a resilience marketplace?

A city-run list of named risk-reduction work at named places, which the parties who carry the risk fund before the damage, with a public record of who paid for what.

### is it insurance or a resilience bond?

Neither. It writes no policy and issues no debt. [A resilience bond is still a bond](/guide/a-resilience-bond-is-still-a-bond?from=guide) covers that instrument, which a city can use alongside a market. Green bonds, resilience bonds and the C40 Cities Finance Facility each do real work; a market is one more way to pay.

### will it lower our insurance premiums?

No one can promise that. An insurer measures its own losses and sets its own prices. A certificate is a record of funding.

### our town is too small for its own market. now what?

A small town can list its places in a regional market instead. [A town joins its region's resilience market](/guide/a-town-joins-its-regions-resilience-market?from=guide) covers that route.

### what does it cost?

The public ranges for setting up and running a market are on [our services page](/services?from=guide#finance), and [launch your city's resilience marketplace](/guide/launch-your-citys-resilience-marketplace?from=guide) lays out the offer.

## next step

Open your adaptation plan and write down five places it names, the risk each holds back, and who pays when it fails. That list is the market. City offices can start from [the governments page](/solutions/governments?from=guide&topic=city-resilience-marketplace), utilities from [the utilities page](/solutions/utilities?from=guide&topic=city-resilience-marketplace), regional bodies from [the regional collaboratives page](/solutions/regional-collaboratives?from=guide&topic=city-resilience-marketplace), or [tell us your city and its first five places](/contact?from=guide&topic=city-resilience-marketplace).

## sources

- [Global Covenant of Mayors](https://www.globalcovenantofmayors.org/): signatories, risk and vulnerability assessment, adaptation plan and reporting
- [C40 Cities](https://www.c40.org/): member cities and networks
- [Stormwater Retention Credit trading, DC Department of Energy and Environment](https://doee.dc.gov/src) and [the price lock program FAQ](https://doee.dc.gov/service/faq-src-price-lock-program): the credit unit, the ceiling and the floor
- [WMCA, West Midlands Nature Investment Hub](https://www.wmca.org.uk/what-we-do/environment-energy/natural-environment/west-midlands-nature-investment-hub/): the hub and its initial pipeline
- [North East Combined Authority, marketplace launch](https://northeast-ca.gov.uk/news/environment-coastal-and-rural/north-east-mayor-launches-uk-s-first-combined-authority-led-carbon-and-nature-marketplace): the June 2025 launch

## the series

1. **how a city runs its own adaptation and resilience marketplace** (you are here)
2. [what an adaptation marketplace lists](/guide/what-an-adaptation-marketplace-lists?from=guide)
3. [who pays into a city's resilience market](/guide/who-pays-into-a-city-resilience-market?from=guide)
4. [your city runs the market. the protocol is the rails](/guide/your-city-runs-the-market-the-protocol-is-the-rails?from=guide)
5. [a town joins its region's resilience market](/guide/a-town-joins-its-regions-resilience-market?from=guide)
6. [launch your city's resilience marketplace](/guide/launch-your-citys-resilience-marketplace?from=guide)