Boston skyline, July 2, 2024
Boston skyline. (Photo via Wikimedia/Creative Commons by Nkon21)

DURING THE BLIZZARD OF ’26 in late February, Boston narrowly escaped a costly reminder of its climate vulnerability – the storm surge arrived hours after high tide. Had the timing been different, flooding could have rivaled the winter storms of 2018, when seawater crossed the Greenway and headed up State Street, and dumpsters floated through the Seaport.

Close calls are becoming more common, and Boston won’t always be so lucky. Fortunately, the city has already taken important steps to prepare, developing detailed coastal resilience plans and beginning to invest in protective infrastructure. The next challenge is financing the full vision.

Early estimates suggest protecting Boston’s coastline from flooding and storm surge could cost in the ballpark of $10 billion over the next two or three decades. That number may sound daunting. But spread over 20 or 30 years, it amounts to about $300 million to $500 million per year.

For perspective, the City of Boston currently plans close to $900 million annually in its capital budget, and local companies, hospitals, and universities spend billions in capital expenditures each year. Climate protection, viewed in that context, does not have to be a fiscal crisis. But it will be a significant capital planning challenge.

While the investment is significant, an even greater challenge lies in how we organize around the problem. 

If resilience unfolds through hundreds of disconnected efforts — each property owner, hospital, university, or developer protecting their own buildings — the city will be left with dangerous gaps in protection along the waterfront. Floodwaters do not stop at property lines, and infrastructure systems such as transportation, utilities, and stormwater drainage function as systems crossing many boundaries.

Protecting the city effectively requires coordinated investments that safeguard entire districts and infrastructure systems, not just individual properties.

Boston is uniquely positioned to make this happen. The city hosts a concentration of globally significant institutions whose operations depend on a stable and functioning urban environment — from hospitals to financial institutions, major companies, and higher ed campuses. 

Together, these organizations manage tens of billions of dollars in annual capital spending and investment assets. Universities maintain multi-year campus development programs. Health systems continually upgrade research and clinical facilities. Major corporations invest heavily in offices, manufacturing, and innovation infrastructure.

In fact, many of these institutions will likely spend significant sums on climate adaptation regardless — elevating buildings, flood-proofing facilities, and strengthening infrastructure around their campuses. The question is not whether this money will be spent. It is whether it will be coordinated.

If every institution acts independently, Boston risks a patchwork of expensive and inefficient defenses that protect individual buildings but fail to secure the broader systems that keep the city functioning. A better approach would coordinate a portion of those inevitable investments into shared infrastructure solutions that protect entire districts and employment centers.

The Boston Green Ribbon Commission is working to help make that coordination possible. The commission is launching a new initiative to estimate the full cost of protecting Boston’s coastline, evaluate an array of funding and financing options, and — critically — quantify the economic return on resilience investments. The commission will also look at whether and what kinds of governance changes may be needed to manage resilience investments wisely.

Equally important, the commission convenes many of Boston’s largest employers, universities, and civic institutions. That creates a forum for the very organizations that depend on Boston’s infrastructure to work together on solutions the city and state cannot deliver alone.

The stakes extend well beyond the waterfront. Boston alone accounts for roughly 25 percent of Massachusetts’s total economic output. Even organizations and communities located well outside the immediate flood zone benefit from ensuring that the city — and the broader Commonwealth — remain vibrant, competitive, and economically resilient.

One option Harvard Business School researchers have explored is a self-organized pool of institutional capital dedicated to coastal resilience — seawalls, flood protection systems, and other shared defenses. Contributions could be phased over time and aligned with institutions’ existing capital plans.

These organizations already contribute to the city through property taxes and payments in lieu of taxes. But those funds enter general public budgets with many competing priorities. Coordinated investment could instead direct capital explicitly toward the infrastructure that protects Boston’s economic core. Pooled funds are just one of many ideas that will be assessed by the Green Ribbon Commission.

Boston’s prosperity has always depended on collaboration among government, universities, businesses, and civic leaders. Climate resilience will require that same model.

The $10 billion needed to protect Boston’s coastline is significant. But spread over two or three  decades and coordinated across the city’s major institutions, it becomes what it truly is: a manageable investment in protecting one of the world’s most productive urban economies.

John Macomber is a senior lecturer in finance at Harvard Business School who studies infrastructure finance and climate resilience. Rebecca Herst is associate director and director of climate resilience at the Boston Green Ribbon Commission.