Scaling up co-produced climate information to meet the needs of other potential users

Decision-making around climate adaptation is a complex challenge for climate-sensitive organizations, involving a wide range of considerations. Climate service prototype efforts play an essential role in supporting these decisions by creating relevant climate information, and communicating it in user-friendly ways. However, the impact of such efforts depends on whether prototypes effectively support decision-making. Co-production with sector experts or end-users is a good approach to incorporate users’ needs. But an important question is whether this co-produced knowledge is also useful for a broader pool of potential users across regions or sectors, which has been termed ‘horizontal upscaling’. There is, however, little empirical research addressing this question. Therefore, this study aims to examine the extent to which co-produced climate information from the ASPECT project is also useful and usable for meeting the decision needs of other similar potential users. The research addresses the following questions:

• How understandable is the co-produced climate information for other potential users?
• How do they evaluate the usefulness and quality of the climate information?
• How useful would the climate information be in supporting their adaptation decision-making process?
• How do they feel that the climate information could be improved?

To answer these questions, a survey was conducted in December 2025. The respondents are practitioners from the pension, agriculture, governance, and humanitarian sectors, with around 33 respondents per sector. The survey tested early-stage climate service prototypes, co-produced with ASPECT users and delivered in the form of a storyboard, a website, a bulletin, and a presentation. Results show that the understandability of co-produced climate information needs to be further improved for use by a broader range of users. Respondents agreed that this information could support their decision-making in several ways.