Built environment

Climate change may pose several risks to the built environment. In the short term, extreme weather such as flooding, storms, heat waves and drought may have more effect than long-term changes such as increasing temperatures and sea level rise. However by the 2050s long-term changes may have more of an impact.  Most of today’s buildings were designed for the climate that existed when they were built, so are not necessarily equipped to cope with current and future climates, and at the current rate of replacement, around 70% of buildings that will be in use in the 2050s already exist.

Threats

• Increase in the cost of expected annual damage to buildings due to flooding
• Increase in the number of properties at significant risk of damage due to flooding and coastal erosion
• Overheating of buildings and increasing impact from the Urban Heat Island effect,  impacting on health, welfare and productivity
• Higher energy demand for summer cooling
• Water supply-demand deficits
• Increase in the number of buildings which could be affected by subsidence

Opportunities

• Reduction in energy demand for heating during the winter

There may be further opportunities for innovative building services and urban planning in the UK and overseas, for example in the design of sustainable buildings and developments.

In developing the National Adaptation Programme we want to work collaboratively with wider stakeholders to consider our collective response to these risks and opportunities.

Questions

1. Do you feel that your organisation understands how future climate and weather risks may (or may not) affect its performance? Is this a problem?
2. In your organisation, what do you feel is the most urgent action needed to adapt to the risks identified in the CCRA?
3. If you think that your organisation needs to do more to adapt, what is stopping you?  To what extent do you think your organisation/sector can do what is needed without Government intervention?
4. Do you have examples of innovative ways of assessing your resilience or adapting to our current and future climate, which you would be happy for us to share with similar organisations and sectors?
5. Is your organisation aware of any potential opportunities presented by climate change? What is your organisation doing to make the most of any opportunities?  Please also cover any opportunities arising from international climate impacts.

Comments

1. Karl Redmond says:

   1 February, 2012 at 5:15 pm

   We are about to have our first meeting (Feb 7th) regarding the assessment of EXISTING commercial buildings (moving on to blocks, streets, infrastructure assets etc). We have highly regarded interested private sector partners and one local public sector partner but happy to share this with central government if it can help and show leadership and get out of London. We are not chsing the dollar – we will be under pinning what we do with independent R&D.

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