Climate change risk resilience & adaptation services
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We can help with:
Climate change adaptation planning
Climate change risk assessment
Stakeholder engagement around risk
Climate change research
We can assist with:
- Fit for purpose climate change and hazard risk identification and assessment.
- Evaluation of system vulnerabilities and criticalities – getting to the bottom of what is important.
- Stakeholder engagement processes that promote a shared understanding of risk preferences and tolerances.
- Creation of manageable staged adaptation plans that incorporate feedback from stakeholders and align with evolving best practice.
For local and regional government climate change risk assessments we work with specialist geospatial risk analysts, such as Urban Intelligence. Together we bring expertise in geospatial analysis and visualisation, with a deep understanding of community resilience, and the interconnectedness of governance, economy, the natural environment, the community and the tangata whenua.
For businesses and other organisations we bring over a decade of research and practice into what makes organisations able to cope with uncertainty and adapt to a changing world.
Need help preparing for the impacts of climate change?
Examples of our work
Climate risk assessment and adaptation planning
Partnering with Urban Intelligence, we are currently working with the Buller District Council to assist them with climate risk assessment and adaptation planning. The present-day impacts of a changing climate and hazardscape are already being noticed in Buller and the cascading impacts are being felt by the community, businesses, and institutions. As the climate continues to change, these impacts will likely be exacerbated.
Our approach uses spatial vulnerability and criticality analysis to build on the risk assessment approach set out in MFE guidance. Our aim is to provide an enduring risk assessment platform to support community engagement and provide robust evidence for adaptation planning that manages challenges and takes advantage of opportunities.
Climate change research
We know that knowledge in this area is still emerging, so we are actively involved in climate change research. Our Let’s Talk About Risk project is investigating how to effectively engage with communities on climate change risk.Â
We are proud contributors to a $1 million MBIE Smart Idea programme led by Dr Tom Logan, University of Canterbury/Urban Intelligence, Innovating climate risk assessment: A system-wide, geospatial approach for councils and communities. The programme is designed to improve the quality of climate change risk assessments.
Building investment prioritisation framework
Organisations are always needing to do more with less.Â
We worked with Canterbury District Health Board to help prioritise their seismic repair and retrofit programme following the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes.Â
We developed a framework to balance parallel and competing objectives including a) life safety risk related to seismic hazards, b) risks from other hazards, and c) the ongoing need to effectively and efficiently provide services to their clients. Pilot application of the framework resulted in reprioritisation of 75% of the original budget.
Evaluating and communicating risk-based decisions
In this project, we helped a large client reconcile the diverse and competing views around the ongoing occupancy of a building subject to rockfall risk. We developed a step-by-step assessment process to focus stakeholders on the key issues at hand, including the nature and scale of the natural hazard risk (including uncertainty), whether activities carried out at the site could be completed elsewhere, the strategic value of the activities undertaken, and cost and risk factors beyond rockfall risk.
Clear and concise communication of the risk and decision process was critical in enabling our client to communicate effectively with their team to engage all in the decision process.