The news is full of reports that this July was the hottest month in the 136 years of our record-keeping. Other news shows communities responding to record-setting floods displacing residents and businesses in Louisiana. East Coast residents are familiar with strange weather and hot summers, but we also had one of the warmest winters in 2015-2016, after witnessing Boston’s record-setting snowfall in the prior winter.

So are private corporations that routinely conduct strategic plans, political, demographic and environmental scans for their marketing plans also planning for increasing their resilience to a future with more extreme weather? There are many signs that real estate owners in coastal cities like Boston, New York and Miami are planning for and in some cases designing and constructing buildings to adapt to the emerging land use permitting requirements to design for flood and wind resistance and elevate vulnerable buildings and their critical energy systems. Innovative financing methods leveraging private banks for retrofitting buildings to be more resilient are also emerging. Some of these trends in proactive planning for resilience to climate change include:

The Boston Redevelopment Authority’s (BRA’s) Climate Change Preparedness and Resiliency Checklist for New Construction, which has helped real estate developers summarize their plans for reducing greenhouse emissions and increasing resiliency.

New York City’s new building code, adopted after Hurricane Sandy to integrate flood resistant design practices.

The American Society of Civil Engineers Guidance ASCE 24-14 for Flood Resistant Design and Construction, updated in late 2014 to increase the design flood elevation when the social and economic critical value of a building, like a hospital, increases in importance in response to natural disasters.

Miami’s investment (without federal funding) of an estimated $400 million in elevating stormwater systems and roads along the waterfront after experiencing ongoing tidal flooding on sunny days.

Connecticut Green Bank’s 2015-16 proposal for new legislation as Raised Bill No. 5563 to expand energy efficiency, clean energy and wind and flood resistant improvements for using a Residential Property Assessed Clean Energy (R-PACE) long-term financing mechanism that complies with federal guidance on subordinating the PACE lien position to first mortgages and property taxes.

General Electric’s headquarters campus, recently proposed to the BRA on the waterfront in the Fort Point Channel Neighborhood of South Boston. The design integrates GE’s ecomagination, sustainable design and coastal flood resilient design by proposing to increase the elevation of the new building and fill in the existing first floor of two historic buildings by about 5 feet to anticipate climate resiliency needs.

A report by re:focus partners and others produced with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation on Leveraging Catastrophe Bonds as a Mechanism for Resilient Infrastructure Project Finance, which examines how climate change adaptation infrastructure projects could be financed with a new product, Resilience Bonds. They evaluate resilient infrastructure financing case studies in Hoboken, New Jersey; Miami, Florida; and Norfolk, Virginia. A follow up publication is expected in 2017.

Governments, energy utility companies and global corporations are facing a real challenge in planning ahead for adapting to the impacts of climate change. Conclusions from a 2015 report from the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, “Weathering the Next Storm: A Closer Look at Business Resilience” include:

Most large, publically held companies recognize and report climate change-related risks. More than 90 percent of companies in the S&P Global 100 Index admit that extreme weather and climate change impacts are current or future risks to their bottom line.

Companies are concerned about climate impacts in their supply chain and to public infrastructure. Nearly all companies interviewed in the study expressed these concerns.

There is no one-size-fits-all method to assess vulnerability and manage climate risks. Companies view climate change as a “threat multiplier” that makes existing enterprise risks worse. This puts planning for future climate change impacts into a familiar context. Companies that overlook or underestimate these multiplied threats will learn the hard way that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Companies struggle with the long-term nature and global scale of available climate data. They need to apply the information locally to prioritize short-term, medium-term and long-term actions. Companies recognize there is easier access to climate-related data and software as a solution tools, but companies surveyed said they need “actionable science” to help them understand the vulnerability of their specific location, its risks and probable risk scenarios.

Governments, academic institutions, reinsurance companies, electric and gas utilities and commercial real estate advocacy groups have been including the topic of disaster preparedness, resilience and climate change into their member conferences. A few conferences have emerged to address the business challenges of climate change to finance, corporate managers and sustainability professionals. Two events worth investigating are Companies vs. Climate Change – the B2B Climate Solutions Event in Fort Lauderdale, Nov. 30 to Dec. 2, and GreenBiz 17, Feb. 14-17 in
Phoenix, Arizona.

Wayne W. Cobleigh, CPSM, is vice president of client services for Norwood-based GZA. He is a co-author of the soon-to-be-published paper, “Financing Resilience in Connecticut- Current Programs, National Models and New Opportunities.”