Unlocking climate resilience through connected digital twins
The Climate Resilience Demonstrator (CReDO) connects data from across the energy, water, gas, and telecoms sectors to create a connected digital twin for system-wide scenario modelling and more effective risk mitigation and decision-making.
August 28, 2025
Unlocking climate resilience through connected digital twins
Climate change is amplifying risks to the UK’s critical infrastructure. Extreme rainfall, heatwaves, and storms are no longer rare events - they are becoming the norm.
Flooding and high winds can take down power lines and telecoms, cascading into failures across water supply, transport safety, and emergency response. Yet our national infrastructure networks – electricity, water, gas, and telecoms – are still managed in siloes. This lack of visibility across interdependent systems leaves operators and policymakers on the back foot, forced to react to crises rather than prevent them.
While digital twin technologies offer powerful solutions, their adoption is held back by barriers to secure, scalable, cross-sector data collaboration. The result is reactive crisis management instead of strategic resilience planning – leading to economic disruption, higher operational costs, and reduced public trust.
“Incorporating data from other infrastructure networks and utilities within existing systems will significantly enrich our insights, leading to better outcomes. To unlock the full potential of CReDo, we need more asset owners to get involved and collaborate effectively. ”
Richard Buckingham, Climate Change and Carbon Manager at Anglian Water
The challenge
Fragmented oversight: UK infrastructure networks are deeply interdependent yet typically managed and modelled in isolation. Critical data and digital assets remain locked within organisational silos, making it difficult to spot vulnerabilities that cut across sectors.
Cascading risks: Extreme weather can trigger cascading failures that ripple through multiple sectors. A flood disrupts power supply, which then compromises water and communications, amplifying risks for communities and business continuity.
Gaps in resilience: Progress on digital twins is promising, but without secure and scalable cross-sector connectivity, their potential remains unrealised. The result is piecemeal, reactive responses instead of coordinated strategies that build long-term resilience.
The solution
The Climate Resilience Demonstrator (CReDO), and its next evolution Climate Resilience Decision Optimiser, build on long-standing efforts to understand infrastructure interdependencies and cascading risks.
By connecting data from across the energy, water, gas, and telecoms sectors, CReDO creates a connected digital twin for system-wide scenario modelling and more effective risk mitigation and decision-making.
Led by Connected Places Catapult and delivered through partnership with infrastructure providers (including Anglian Water, BT, UK Power Networks, Science and Technology Facilities Council, Cadent Gas, National Grid, SP Energy Networks, and the University of Edinburgh), CReDO demonstrates the power of collective intelligence and secure data sharing in shaping a more resilient future.
Download the full case study to discover the impact of CReDo so far, and the exciting next steps.
Unlocking climate resilience through connected digital twins
