Climate businessClimate-related businesses growing

The business of climate change has seen significant growth in the last decade, but analysts believe it will take many more years to determine the effectiveness of the solutions proposed by climate-focused businesses. “This market certainly is getting an awful lot of attention and increased opportunity,” said Joe Young, vice president of insurance operations for The Climate Corp. (TCC). “The weather impacts all of us. You certainly see a lot folks in the climate space from various angles and various points of view.” San Francisco-based TCC, founded by two engineers formerly with Google Inc., was purchased last year for $930 million by Monsanto Co., the publicly traded multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology firm.

TCC reported in August that U.S. farmers working more than fifty million acres had subscribed to its Climate Basic Service— a free Web and mobile service that analyzes data to help farmers make planting decisions with “field-level insights, from soil moisture levels, to crop growth stage, to current and future weather.” The group’s free app and Web service may be augmented through its Climate Pro and Precision Acre paid plans. These services offer insights on optimal planting and harvest dates, and advisories on nitrogen and pests and disease control. According to TCC, its offerings rely on “hyper-local weather monitoring, agronomic modeling and high resolution weather simulations.”

Insurance Journal reports that operating as a managing general agent, TCC also works with an estimated 300 independent agents around the nation and offers crop and multi-peril crop insurance policies through a multi-year carrier agreement with OneBeacon Insurance Group.

Despite its growth and acquisition by Monsanto, some analysts question just how much TCC is dedicated to preparing farmers for the impact of climate change, considering its name “The Climate Corp,” and that climate change is a primary concern for most U.S. farmers. Young told Insurance Journal that TCC is not looking to inform farmers about the impacts of climate change, but instead focused on offering farmers local data on weather and climate patterns including rainfall, dry spells, heat waves, and extreme weather. “We’re really trying to move the industry forward from more of a reliance on intuition to more of a reliance on data and data science,” Young said.