New guide to climate change adaptation

Building resilience to the impacts of climate change was one of the elements of COP27.

While limited progress was made on rapidly reducing emissions, significant progress was made on adaptation, with a focus on the Global Goal on Adaptation and an agreement to establish a loss and damage fund for unavoidable climate impacts. However, the United Nations highlights that the adaptation gap is growing, and so much more needs to be done in the years ahead to help people, organisations and places avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and use adaptation as a way to bring about broader societal transformation.

To support these efforts, IEMA has developed IEMA Climate Change Adaptation Practitioner Guidance. This uses a maturity matrix approach, which shows the hallmarks of good adaptation across five key business functions – including sites and operations, strategy, people, finance and value chains. It also provides examples of adaptation in action.

The guidance provides the context for action, considering the wider UK’s policy frameworks, as well as relevant standards, such as from ISO 14090. It also introduces some of the more complex concepts, such as cascading and converging risks, as an overview, signposting further reading where relevant. Finally, it draws on industry-wide insights to outline some of the key adaptation trends to keep an eye on.

If there are further things you would like to explore, contact [email protected]. Go to bit.ly/adaptation-guidance to download the guidance.