Eight founding organizations unite under a memorandum of understanding at the Sustainable Ocean Summit in Barcelona to take the Coastal Resilience Scorecard digital and transform coastal risk assessments into fundable, impactful resilience projects.

Barcelona, Spain and New York, NY, Nov. 04, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- One year after releasing the Coastal Resilience Scorecard at a “Blue Spark” session of the Sustainable Ocean Summit, ARISE-US and its partners returned to the Summit today for a second Blue Spark, announced simultaneously in Barcelona and New York, to launch the Coastal Resilience Scorecard Advisory Board and Phase 2 of the initiative: digitizing the Scorecard with technology partner TECHG-X, a climate tech startup.

The announcement was made at 2:00 PM CET in a session presented by Eugene Karl Montoya (Sandmont Natural Capital, Scorecard Advisory Board), Cheryl Hapke, Ph.D. (Hapke Coastal, Scorecard Advisory Board) and Adam Hosking (Jacobs, Scorecard Advisory Board).

Phase 1, completed in November 2025, delivered the Scorecard, its User Guide and Self-Scoring Tool: a free, open-source assessment grounded in the UNDRR Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient and the Sendai Framework, built by a global team of volunteer experts.

Phase 2 turns that partnership into a formal Advisory Board. Its eight founding members, united under a memorandum of understanding, bring complementary layers of perspective and capability with a shared focus on implementation, so that a city can move from its Scorecard results to projects that are designed, fundable and impactful. The Advisory Board will be nested within the Centre of Excellence for Coastal Resilience at World Ocean Council, where the Scorecard becomes the inaugural flagship tool for the Centre of Excellence.

The inaugural Advisory Board includes:

  • ARISE-US – the U.S. network of UNDRR’s Private Sector Alliance for Disaster Resilient Societies and the global home of the Scorecard
  • World Ocean Council – convener, through its Centre of Excellence for Coastal Resilience in Barcelona
  • Hapke Coastal – coastal science and resilience strategy, and a core developer of the Scorecard
  • Sandmont Natural Capital – climate and resilience finance expert supporting financialization of the Scorecard’s outputs, and a core developer of the Scorecard
  • Global Development College – capacity building and education, and a core developer of the Scorecard
  • Jacobs – global engineering and technology firm with a deep coastal resilience practice spanning planning, design, and program delivery
  • Waterfront Alliance – waterfront resilience and design standards, including the Waterfront Edge Design Guidelines (WEDG)
  • Okhtapus – global replication platform accelerating proven urban and coastal resilience solutions from reef to roof

Phase 2: from analog to digital, with TECHG-X
Working with TECHG-X, the Advisory Board will take the Scorecard from PDF documents and spreadsheet scoring tools to a digital platform making it easier for city teams to collaborate across departments, score their readiness, and see where to act first. Cities self-score from 0 to 5 against each of the Ten Essentials; the lowest scores become a short list of priority coastal resilience projects.

The digital platform will support global coastal resilience pilots, building on the Scorecard’s first pilot assessment in the Pacific Islands. The Board’s work showcases later the same afternoon with “How Resilient Is Your Coast? The ARISE Coastal Resilience Scorecard Workshop,” from 3:30 to 5:00 PM CET in The Market at Fira Barcelona Gran Via.

Opened by Stewart Sarkozy-Banoczy, CEO and Managing Director of the World Ocean Council, and moderated by Cheryl Hapke and Eugene Montoya, the workshop gathers input on digitization, fundable projects and the how-to guidance practitioners need in their geographies. The Scorecard, User Guide and scoring tools remain free to download at preventionweb.net/quick/99074.

“On behalf of World Ocean Council, the Centre of Excellence for Coastal Resilience and all the members and partners we support and work with, this is a step we celebrate with our Scorecard collaborators, as we lean in to the intersections and actions needed for coastal resilience, the blue economy and public-private responsibility for our ocean, seas, lakes and rivers. We are grateful to be a part of this journey to impact,” said Stewart Sarkozy-Banoczy, CEO and Managing Director, World Ocean Council.

“Coastal resilience requires more than understanding risk. It requires turning that understanding into action. The ARISE Coastal Resilience Scorecard gives communities a practical framework to identify priorities, strengthen collaboration, and advance solutions that are both fundable and impactful. Through our WEDG® (Waterfront Edge Design Guidelines), Waterfront Alliance champions an integrated approach to waterfront design that brings ecology, resilience, and public access together. We’re proud to join this global effort to help translate assessment into meaningful progress for coastal communities,” said Julie Raskin, President and CEO, Waterfront Alliance.

"ARISE-US is thrilled to announce this partnership to turn the Coastal Resilience Scorecard into a true platform with tools to help coastal cities and communities become more resilient.  The need is only going to grow, as urbanisation increases and as climate change and sea-level rise take hold.  This Scorecard is the most complete one yet, due in large measure to our original work with Waterfront Alliance: we hope that the results of this further work will save lives, livelihoods and assets around the world,” said Peter Williams, Co-Chair of ARISE-US.

“Frontline coastal communities are often the first to feel climate impacts and the last to access the finance and resources needed to respond. Untested ideas are hard to fund, but replication changes that equation and resilience knowledge should travel as freely and rapidly as the risks we face. The Scorecard helps cities see where action matters most; Okhtapus helps them act on it faster, by adapting solutions already working in other coastlines and connecting them to the partners and finance that can exponentially deliver and implement at scale,” said Mehrnaz Ghojeh, Co-Founder and CEO, Okhtapus.

“Building coastal resilience means moving beyond understanding risk to enabling action. The Coastal Resilience Scorecard creates a practical bridge between assessment, investment and implementation, helping communities identify where action can have the greatest impact. Jacobs is proud to bring our resilience, engineering, design and infrastructure delivery experience to the Advisory Board and work alongside a global community of partners to help turn resilience priorities into impactful projects,” said Adam Hosking, Global Director, Resilience and Climate Response, Jacobs.

Learn more at https://coastal-resilience.org/.

Media Contact
Aria Cochran, Director of Communications, Waterfront Alliance acochran@waterfrontalliance.org

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About Waterfront Alliance
The Waterfront Alliance is a regional nonprofit leading efforts to create thriving, resilient, and accessible waterfronts across the New York–New Jersey harbor and beyond. Founded in 2007, the organization has grown into a network of more than 1,100 partners working together to transform over 700 miles of shoreline into a shared resource that supports communities, ecosystems, and economic activity, while advancing solutions to sea level rise and coastal climate challenges. Through advocacy, education, and cross-sector collaboration, the Waterfront Alliance expands public access, strengthens working waterfronts, and empowers the next generation of environmental stewards.

About the ARISE Coastal Resilience Scorecard
The ARISE Coastal Resilience Scorecard is a global, open-source self-assessment tool that helps coastal cities and communities evaluate their readiness for coastal disasters and chronic coastal stresses across the UNDRR Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient, and identify priority projects to close the gaps.

About TECHG-X
TECHG-X is a climate and geospatial tech company transforming complex climate data into actionable insights through its innovative solutions AssetRx and the SLR Insight Hub, which help organizations understand and manage climate and coastal flood risks. Through this collaboration, TECHG-X is supporting the design and development of the Scorecard digital platform, helping participating communities move from assessment results toward clearer priorities and actionable resilience planning.

CONTACT: Aria Cochran
Waterfront Alliance
2129359831
acochran@waterfrontalliance.org