Most sustainability leads meet MSCI's climate data second-hand. An investor cites an MSCI physical risk score in a due diligence pack, or a group licence already covers it, and the question becomes whether that data can also carry the company's own disclosure under IFRS S2, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) climate standard. MSCI builds its climate data first for investors and lenders, and the team responsible for the buildings is asking a different question. This guide compares the seven platforms companies usually move to from MSCI.
A note on who publishes this. SmartResilience publishes this article and is one of the tools compared. To keep the comparison fair, every tool is assessed against the same criteria and described in the same format.
What is MSCI, and who is it for?
MSCI is a financial data and index provider that licenses climate data as a dataset rather than selling an operational platform, and it builds that range for investors, banks and insurers rather than for the teams running the buildings.
What it covers: MSCI's physical risk range reports 31 hazard types at asset level and 30 at issuer level, down to individual building footprints across more than 2 billion locations.
Who buys it: MSCI states its climate audience as asset managers, banks, insurers and investors using the data for risk management, due diligence and regulatory compliance.
How it arrives: Teams receive metrics as a data feed into existing risk systems, so a company using it for its own disclosure builds the reporting layer itself.
What does MSCI do well?
MSCI supplies physical risk, transition risk, carbon markets, nature and portfolio footprinting data under one contract.
Hazard breadth at two levels: 31 hazard types at asset level and 30 at issuer level, which means a team can screen its own buildings and its suppliers from the same source.
Physics-based damage modelling in house: MSCI completed its acquisition of First Street on 3 August 2026, bringing building-specific damage modelling across 2.4 billion structures inside the same provider that supplies your investors.
Physical and transition risk on one contract: Sustainability teams get Climate Value-at-Risk, carbon markets data, nature metrics and the Energy Transition Framework without adding a second vendor.
Published scenario sets: MSCI runs its scenario analysis on the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenario sets rather than a proprietary pathway.
Key takeaway: MSCI is the stronger option if your reporting audience is external capital, and the weaker option if your reporting audience is your own operations team.
Why do companies look for an alternative to MSCI?
Companies look for an alternative to MSCI for four reasons: the output is built for financial institutions, no alert reaches a site team before an event, adaptation measures are not costed or ranked, and the physical risk methodology changed hands in August 2026.
The output is shaped around the issuer and the portfolio: MSCI builds its climate business for financial institutions, which answer to the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), whose supervisory statement SS5/25 of December 2025 sets what they must show on climate risk. A company carrying no PRA obligation is buying a lens aimed at its own investors, where XDI and SmartResilience start from the asset you own.
No alert reaches a site team before an event: MSCI's climate solutions pages describe no real-time monitoring, no weather alerting and no site notification, so the data supports a decision made months ahead rather than one made this week. SmartResilience is the only option here that sends a warning to a named person at a site.
Adaptation measures are not costed or ranked: MSCI's climate solutions pages describe no engineering measure library and no payback figures for physical measures, which leaves a finance team approving capex without knowing which measure repays first. Jupiter Intelligence and SmartResilience both attach a return to the measure.
The physical risk methodology has just changed hands: Teams that documented a disclosure basis on MSCI physical risk data before August 2026 are now describing a First Street methodology, so that section of the documentation gets rewritten either way. XDI and S&P Global Climanomics both publish a standing methodology you can cite by version and date.
Which are the best alternatives to MSCI in 2026?
The seven strongest alternatives to MSCI in 2026 are SmartResilience, S&P Global Sustainable1 Climanomics, XDI, Jupiter Intelligence, Moody's Climate on Demand, Risilience and Climate X, and each one is strongest on a different job. None covers MSCI's full range, because no specialist here supplies emissions accounting, carbon markets or index data.
Platform | Best for | Who it's for |
|---|---|---|
Acting on the assessment at each site | Multi-site corporates that own or operate their sites | |
A defensible loss figure per asset | Reporting teams facing an assurance provider | |
A loss figure challenged in technical detail | Teams answering an auditor or an in-house engineer | |
Passing internal model risk review | Listed groups with formal model validation | |
Screening many locations quickly | Risk and insurance teams doing due diligence | |
Physical and transition risk in one model | Group strategy functions at large corporates | |
Anticipating a lender's due diligence questions | Property-heavy businesses under lender scrutiny |
1. SmartResilience
SmartResilience quantifies exposure at site level, ranks adaptation measures by payback and monitors every site continuously, so one dataset supports both a disclosure and a spending decision. Assessments cover flood, heat, wind, water stress and wildfire, with monitoring across 10 extreme weather types.
Best for: Turning a completed assessment into action at each site, with average annual loss (AAL) and probable maximum loss (PML) per site and alerts averaging more than 12 hours of warning before an event.
Who it's for: Global multi-site corporates that own or operate their own sites and need one dataset behind the disclosure, the capital plan and the site response.
2. S&P Global Sustainable1 Climanomics
Climanomics prices climate hazards as a financial loss using a library of impact functions written per asset type, set out in a published methodology dated June 2025. The library separates an owner-operator from an occupier, a tenant and an investor holding the same building, so a leasehold estate is not modelled as a freehold one.
Best for: Producing a defensible loss figure per asset that an assurance provider can trace back to a document, covering asset damage, operating costs and productivity impacts.
Who it's for: Reporting teams that need an auditable loss figure per asset and can accept a separate provider for transition risk.
3. XDI
XDI models damage to the components inside an asset rather than to the asset as a single unit, with results traceable to the point of failure, across 11 named hazards under one methodology. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority runs its Physical Risk Assessment Platform on the XDI Climate Risk Hub.
Best for: Defending a loss figure that will be challenged in technical detail, down to which electrical or construction element fails first at a given hazard intensity.
Who it's for: Teams whose number faces an auditor or an in-house engineering function that will not accept a score.
4. Jupiter Intelligence
Jupiter Intelligence built ClimateScore Global for institutions whose models are formally reviewed before use, and packages the documentation to match, including peer-reviewed modelling frameworks and validation against observed data. Analysts get more than 22,000 metrics per location across 22.3 billion locations, in five-year steps to 2100.
Best for: Passing internal model risk review, and attaching an expected loss, an avoided loss and a return figure to each adaptation option through its Adaptation Hub.
Who it's for: Listed groups with a formal model validation process, where a risk function signs off any model feeding a disclosure.
5. Moody's Climate on Demand
Moody's Climate on Demand runs climate projections through the probabilistic catastrophe models Moody's RMS developed over three decades, hybridised with global climate models. Teams get a Mean Financial Impact and a Tail Risk Financial Impact figure, so a finance team sees the expected cost and the bad-year cost separately.
Best for: Screening many locations quickly during acquisition due diligence or an insurance renewal, using a modelling house underwriters already accept.
Who it's for: Risk and insurance teams with data engineering support, whose brokers and underwriters already price on Moody's RMS models.
6. Risilience
Risilience assesses physical and transition risk through a single analytical lens on its Riise platform, with methodology traced to the Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies at the University of Cambridge. Tesco, Nestlé and Barclays appear on its published client list.
Best for: Keeping physical and transition risk consistent inside one model, rather than reconciling one vendor's physical output against another's transition output.
Who it's for: Group strategy or sustainability functions at large consumer and industrial businesses that need both risk types on one methodology.
7. Climate X
Climate X built Spectra for the banks and property investors that lend against and invest in buildings, covering 12 hazards across more than 1.5 billion assets, with the wildfire model resolved at 30 metres globally. Its outputs map to IFRS S2, the EU Taxonomy, European Central Bank expectations, CSRD and US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting.
Best for: Anticipating the due diligence questions a lender or an investor will ask about your estate, using the analysis that lender is likely running.
Who it's for: Property-heavy businesses under active lender or investor scrutiny.
Our separate guide covers the alternatives to Climate X if you are evaluating it as the incumbent, and our comparison of climate risk software for multi-site UK estates filters this group on estate-scale criteria.
Practical tip: Before you shortlist, write down the two decisions this data has to support in the next 12 months. If both are disclosure decisions, compare on methodology depth and framework coverage. If one involves spending money on a specific building, compare on output resolution and on whether anything reaches a site team.
What should you ask a vendor before choosing?
Every shortlisted vendor should answer the same five questions in writing before a signature, covering hazard coverage and resolution, framework mapping, pricing as sites change, methodology export and what happens if their underlying data provider changes.
Which hazards do you model, named individually, and what is the output resolution for each?
Which disclosure frameworks do you map to, and will you state that in the contract?
How does pricing behave as we add or remove sites mid-term?
Can we export the methodology and data lineage to our auditor?
What happens to our documented methodology if you change your underlying data provider?
Our guide to the eight questions to ask before you buy covers what to get in writing on each of these.
How SmartResilience helps you turn a physical risk assessment into a disclosure your auditor can test
Most reporting teams hit the same problem after a first assessment. They hold a hazard picture for every site and a disclosure deadline, and no figure the finance function will defend to an auditor. Closing that gap is what we built SmartResilience Climate Assessments to do, and we work with your team through the whole cycle.
The physical risk metrics the standards ask for: Your team gets average annual loss and probable maximum loss per site, the share of total insured value (TIV) in high-risk zones by hazard and scenario-based exposure to 2100 under the emissions pathway you already use.
Time horizons set to your planning cycle: We model any year to 2100 rather than fixing on 2030 and 2050, so the horizons in your disclosure match your capital plan.
Adaptation cases ranked by payback: Your finance and property teams see the cost and payback of each physical measure on the highest-risk assets, so your team brings a costed decision to the budget conversation rather than a request.
A methodology your auditor can open: The inputs, scenarios, prioritisation logic and data lineage sit on the platform and export directly, drawing on IPCC AR6, the CMIP6 ensemble and JBA Risk Management's UK flood data.
Sainsbury's runs early warning with us across 1,000+ sites and avoided a £3m flood damage event when Storm Franklin arrived at a site that had flooded seven years earlier.
"We can quote our physical risk score to an investor tomorrow. We still cannot tell the property team which two sites to spend the capex on."
How should you choose between them?
The final decision comes down to who is your reporting audience, whether you need physical or also transition risk coverage, and whether you're looking at a
Does your reporting audience sit outside the company or inside it? If your primary reader is an investor, a lender or a ratings analyst, staying with MSCI and adding nothing is a defensible answer.
Will the number be challenged in technical detail? If an auditor or an in-house engineer will test it, XDI's component-level modelling or Climanomics' published methodology gives you more to stand on.
Do you need transition risk in the same model? If a group strategy depends on both risk types being consistent, Risilience covers both in one lens and MSCI covers both across its own product range.
Does anything have to happen at a specific building? If the answer involves capex, an insurance renewal or a site manager acting on a forecast, the assessment has to become operational, which is a different product from a data feed.
For most UK and European corporates that own or operate their sites, the default is SmartResilience, because those companies need one dataset behind a disclosure, a capital plan and a site response. The exception is genuine: a company whose main climate reporting audience is its own investors is better served staying where it is.
The regulatory direction makes this harder to defer. IFRS S2 requires disclosure of physical risks and of effects that could reasonably be expected to affect cash flows, access to finance or cost of capital, so a hazard score alone will not satisfy it. The EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) sets the equivalent requirement for groups reporting in Europe.
In the UK, UK Sustainability Reporting Standards (UK SRS) S1 and S2 are finalised and available for voluntary use while the Financial Conduct Authority consults on whether to require reporting against them, so the platform you choose this year is likely the one carrying your first mandatory disclosure. Organisations should take independent legal and accounting advice on their specific obligations.
FAQs
Is MSCI a climate risk platform?
MSCI is a financial data and index provider with a climate product range covering physical risk, transition risk, carbon markets and nature. MSCI designs that data primarily for investors, banks and insurers, and licenses it as data rather than selling an operational platform.
What is MSCI Climate Value-at-Risk?
Climate Value-at-Risk expresses climate change effects as an impact on company or portfolio value. MSCI reports coverage across 14,000+ companies, 10,000+ securities in 46 sovereign markets and 1 million commercial and residential properties, using NGFS and IPCC scenarios.
Does MSCI provide early warning for extreme weather?
MSCI's climate solutions pages describe no real-time monitoring, weather alerting or site notification, as checked on 31 August 2026. Its climate products support decisions on a planning horizon rather than an operational one.
How much does MSCI climate data cost?
MSCI does not publish rates for its climate data. No platform in this comparison publishes a rate card, so expect a per-engagement quote scaled to the number of assets and the modules you license.
Can MSCI data support an IFRS S2 disclosure?
MSCI describes its regional physical hazard metrics as disclosure ready and aligned to the ISSB standards and CSRD. Whether it satisfies your specific disclosure depends on the resolution your auditor expects, so confirm the requirement before licensing.
What changed when MSCI acquired First Street?
MSCI completed the acquisition on 3 August 2026, bringing physics-based, building-specific damage modelling across 2.4 billion structures in house. Teams that documented a disclosure methodology on earlier MSCI physical risk data will need to update that documentation.
