Identifying, assessing and minimising the risks

The process for the identification of hazards and risks of climate change in the property sector is set out in the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) Principles series: climate change adaptation and EIA (for information see also isurv Environmental impact assessment). This sets out how climate change risks should be considered on a project level, how their significance is assessed and how measures to mitigate and adapt should be formulated.

BREEAM 2014 also specifies a similar process through the ‘Wst 05 Credit’, specifically focussing on structural and fabric resilience, thermal comfort, low carbon design, water consumption and runoff. As such, the process that is typically followed is outlined in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Flowchart summarising the overall process