Climate change has become a centre stage issue as people increasingly accept its inevitability and businesses and governments recognise the necessity of adopting sound solutions to limit potentially devastating impacts on agriculture, housing, infrastructure and healthcare.

Dr Tom Downing and his colleagues at the Global Climate Adaptation Partnership (GCAP), based at Oxford Centre for Innovation, have been pioneers in the field of climate change adaptation for more than 20 years.

Now they are in demand to work with governments and communities across the globe.

Formerly at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute and part of the team that won a Nobel Prize for global assessments in 2008, Dr Downing founded GCAP in 2009 with his brother, Andy, a serial entrepreneur in the United States and Mohamed Hamza, an expert in disaster risk management.

They wanted to use their knowledge to create practical solutions whilst also having the freedom to innovate.

Dr Downing (pictured right) said: “Climate change affects every aspect of daily life from food and housing to education, business and healthcare.

“Droughts erode soils and cause roads to buckle while floods can wash away railway stations. Our role is to be an instrument of change to help communities overcome these climate change challenges.”

The solutions are complex.They are set in a context of tough environmental standards and require sustainable finance.

GCAP’s approach aims to combine in-depth knowledge and access to vast amounts of climate data with strong operational and planning insight. The model of working is to bring specific expertise to local climate adaptation issues.

Dr Downing explained: “We do not want to be the sort of consultancy that parachutes ‘experts’ into a country, tells them how to do it and vanishes with zero ongoing support.

“We actively seek local expertise and work with those individuals to develop best practice and sustainable solutions that work for the community. The only way to embed adaptation is for local people to be part of developing the solution and want to take it forward.”

The company works in Africa, Latin America, Nepal, Pakistan, Peru and Korea for an extensive client list of national governments, disaster risk reduction agencies, regional organisations and banks, including the Department for International Development, African Development Bank, the European Investment Bank and various UN initiatives including the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and the UN Environment Programme.

Projects can be technical — for example, GCAP has created an online tool enabling the African Development Bank to screen funding applications for infrastructure projects and ensure they are resilient to climate change.

Other work involves impact assessments of climate change on crop production and and requirements for drought resistant roads that will not crack in countries such as Zanzibar and Tanzania.

Most recently, the Global Green Growth Institute has appointed a consortium led by GCAP to develop the climate resilience component of Ethiopia’s Climate Resilient Green Economy plan, a national strategy that aims to build a climate resilient green economy by 2025 starting with the agricultural, forestry and land use sectors.

Working in partnership with organisations including the Ministry of Agriculture GCAP will be assessing and identifying practical options for climate resilience, taking into account environmental, social and economic considerations, as well as investigating financing options.

A high-quality, partnership approach lies at the heart of GCAP’s ethos. A range of projects is delivered by a core team of six staff based in Oxford and travelling extensively, working with a pool of 25 specialist associates and a partnership network of local experts around the world.

GCAP has recently launched a new branch in Kenya as Africa has become a major focus for its climate adaptation work.

In order to maintain high quality standards and encourage sharing of best practice across the network, the company has created its own Adaptation Academy, an innovative training programme. The third Adaptation Academy hosted in Oxford this summer attracted participants from Kenya, Nepal, Ghana, Togo, Lesotho, Ethiopia, Spain and the US, and is designed to provide practical next steps in climate change adaptation which they can apply directly to their specific context.

CGAP is now aiming for the course to become professionally accredited by partnering with a major university in order to certify that participants have developed a particular level of capability.

Also in development is Adaptation Space (aSpace), an online knowledge management service that will provide access to the latest climate adaptation resources and create extensive professional communities of practitioners and experts.

Dr Downing said: “It has been an exciting journey since GCAP’s creation. We have learned a lot both about the challenges of a start-up company and being innovative in an ever evolving and complex field. We are proud of our progress and excited about the road ahead.” This page is co-ordinated by Oxford Innovation www.oxin.co.uk