From Climate Projections to Adaptation Plans: An Industrial Case Study

For industries, the impacts of climate change are no longer a theoretical or distant risk. From the failure of data centers during the UK’s 2022 heatwave to the disruption caused by the 2024 Valencia floods on rail manufacturer Stadler, climate risks are already affecting the safety, productivity, and long-term viability of industrial operations. Yet, most projects continue to rely on outdated meteorological assumptions, leaving them ill-prepared for today’s climate, let alone the challenges of the coming decades.

Industrial companies now face a competitive, and even existential, challenge: anticipating climate evolution and adapting their facilities before it’s too late.

In this case study, we explore how Callendar, a leader of industry-grade climate projections, partnered with CNPP, a trusted expert in risk prevention and management, to deliver a comprehensive solution for anticipating climate change, identifying vulnerabilities, and securing the sites of a major French energy company.

This article is based on a webinar broadcast in November 2025.

Climate change presents industrial companies with an unprecedented challenge

Today, businesses face a triple pressure:

• Increasing climate hazards: Heatwaves, floods, storms, and droughts are becoming both more severe and more frequent.

• Projects designed for a past climate: Design assumptions, safety standards, and protection systems (cooling, dikes, ventilation, etc.) are based on historical weather data, data that no longer reflects current realities.

• Growing demands from stakeholders and regulators: This includes France’s 3rd National Climate Change Adaptation Plan and the EU Directive 2022/2557 on the resilience of critical entities.

In this context, a major French energy company sought to assess the impact of climate change on seven of its industrial sites across Europe and North America. The goal? Anticipate risks by 2050 and define adaptation measures to ensure operational continuity.

While climate adaptation is often perceived as a single, unified process, addressing such complex challenges actually requires at least two distinct areas of expertise: climate scientists to model site-specific hazards, and risk managers to translate these insights into actionable strategies.

Example of a major climate risk: an industrial zone submerged during the 2011 floods in Thailand.

Combining effective climate projection tools with hands-on industrial risk management is essential

This is why Callendar and CNPP joined forces to address the client's needs through a three-step approach:

Step 1: Generate reliable, localized climate projections

Without precise projections, recommendations will almost inevitably lead to either over-adaptation, basing decisions on pessimistic climate scenarios and overinvesting in mitigating low-probability risks or under-adaptation, failing to anticipate evolving risks until they materialize. Methods must also be consistent to enable comparison of hazards across sites and ensure that resources are allocated where they are truly needed.

Climate data forms the foundation of any adaptation strategy. If this foundation is weak, it will be impossible to build an accurate vulnerability assessment or an effective action plan.

Using ClimateVision, Callendar’s climate science service, we were able to rapidly generate a comprehensive and reliable climate database for all sites.

The projections explored three scenarios from the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report an optimistic (SSP1-2.6), median (SSP2-4.5) and pessimistic scenario (SSP5-8.5), to encompass the full range of possible emission trajectories. Following scientific best practices, the study relied on 12 CMIP6 climate models to assess the level of convergence between independent projections and quantify inter-model uncertainty.

ClimateVision’s automated data processing includes bias correction, downscaling, and multiple quality checks to produce precise local projections of temperature, precipitation, wind speed, wave height (for coastal sites), and more.

For each site, we modeled the evolution of climate hazards by identifying average trends and quantifying extreme events for return periods ranging from 5 to 100 years. This assessment was conducted from the current decade to the end of the century, with a 10-year time step, allowing stakeholders to select the time horizon that best aligns with their project’s lifecycle.

Step 2: Assess site vulnerability with CNPP

CNPP then integrated these projections into its 5011 framework, a vulnerability analysis methodology specifically designed for natural and climate-related risks. This critical step enabled to:

• Identify hazards: flooding, storm surges, extreme winds, heatwaves, etc.

• Characterize at-risk assets: buildings, critical equipment, and sensitive industrial processes.

• Assess the severity of impacts: production halts, material damage, revenue loss, etc.

For example, on a coastal industrial facility, ClimateVision projections revealed a likely 20 cm rise in sea level by 2050, leading to an increased frequency of storm surges. CNPP translated this data into a gross risk rating, highlighting a critical threat to low-lying infrastructure.

Step 3: Propose targeted adaptation measures

By combining climate projections with vulnerability analysis, we were able to:

• Prioritize actions based on the most critical risks.

• Quantify the cost of inaction: What would be the financial impact of flooding or cooling system failure by 2050?

• Define a mitigation plan: reinforcing dikes, installing additional cooling systems, relocating sensitive equipment, etc.

As a pratical example, for a manufacturing facility at high risk of flooding, the proposed measures included building flood barriers, relocating critical equipment to elevated areas and implementing an emergency plan to evacuate personnel and secure facilities in the event of a weather alert.

Preventive deployment of flood barriers following a weather alert

Scaling climate adaptation

In France alone, there are nearly 500 major electricity production or storage sites, 1,300 "Seveso" sites handling or storing hazardous materials, 3,700 quarries, and no fewer than half a million "ICPE", facilities subject to environmental regulations.

Yet each site faces its own unique challenges. Among the 7 sites studied in this project, for example, some are located along the coast while others are inland; some are subject to European regulations, while others operate under different frameworks. The challenge, therefore, is to tailor recommendations to each specific situationn with resources that are inevitably limited compared to the scale of the need.

Globally, millions of industrial sites are awaiting similar studies.

Faced with such a vast need, there is a strong temptation to compromise on study quality in order to cover all sites with a simple or even simplistic assessment. This is the logic behind scoring methods and many of the climate risk assessment tools currently available on the market.

The approach developed in this project offers an alternative to realistically deliver high-quality adaptation plans for a large number of sites.

The approach is compatible with real-world budgets and timelines—without compromising on scientific rigor.

Thanks to ClimateVision, Callendar’s climate science service, detailed climate projections are generated in less than 24 hours, compared to several weeks with traditional methods. This means all available time and energy can be focused where it truly matters: identifying and mitigating risks.

This project is a concrete illustration of Callendar’s mission: to democratize access to local, actionable climate data and accelerate adaptation efforts.

A close collaboration between climate scientists and risk experts

Callendar provides robust, localized climate data, while CNPP delivers operational vulnerability analysis. Together, we cover the entire process, from projection to action, without compromising on either dimension.

This close collaboration prevents a siloed approach. The indicators provided by Callendar align with industrial needs and practices, and their interpretation can be validated by a climatologist.

A reproducible methodology ready for scale up

For this project, the approach was applied across seven international industrial sites, demonstrating its ability to adapt to diverse contexts whether in climate conditions, regulations or types of infrastructure.

This project shows how to remove the barriers that slow the adaptation of industrial projects, causing billions of euros in damage and losses every year. By combining the scientific expertise and tools of Callendar with the risk management experience of CNPP, industrial players now have an operational solution to anticipate climate evolution on their assets, assess the effects on infrastructure and activities, and act with concrete and prioritised adaptation measures.

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Are your sites ready for the climate of today and tommorow? Contact us to carry out climate assessments and secure your infrastructure starting today.