Most conversations about climate resilience in commercial real estate development happen when designing new structures to withstand future storms or when repairing or retrofitting existing ones after disaster strikes. Far less attention is paid to the in-between stage: the active construction site.
In an interview with The Epicenter, Rozza of Ryan Companies explains what happens when a major storm hits mid-construction and why CRE leaders should give as much weight to their works in process as they do to projects on either end of the building spectrum.
Extreme weather events and a changing climate are reshaping long-term housing affordability across America. The result is a migration pattern that would have shocked demographers a decade ago: people are leaving the Sun Belt and heading to the Rust Belt.
The Epicenter helps infrastructure decision-makers understand climate risks and identify practical, cost-effective resilience solutions.
Between 2000-2009, the U.S. averaged almost seven disasters per year that cost a billion dollars or more (per disaster). Twenty years later, in 2023, that number had spiked to 28 disasters every year, or one every other week.
What’s concerning is that these increasingly frequent climate events are not just the mega-storms like Hurricane Katrina (approximate cost: $200 billion). Today, even a 30-minute thunderstorm can cause over $1 billion in damage.
What’s going on? It’s a complex, nuanced challenge, and in the coming months we’ll unpack it in a new email newsletter.
It involves climate change, population growth and migration, asset exposure, federal policy, private capital, systemic inequities, and the need to adapt our nation’s critical infrastructure.
One thing is clear: we’re entering an era where the cycles of destruction-to-reconstruction will only become more rapid.
Storms will hit. Communities will rebuild. Storms will hit again. Communities will rebuild once more.
These rapid cycles of deconstruction-to-reconstruction present an opportunity to think differently about how we prevent costly destruction in the first place, incorporate resiliency into our infrastructure, and support communities in the rebuilding process.
This is the work of The Resiliency Company. We mobilize the funding, innovation, and policies required to shift markets and minds toward resiliency.
We define resiliency as the ability of infrastructure—the physical, economic, and social systems central to the functioning of an economy and a society—to withstand extreme climate impacts and recover from them quickly. Whether it’s new building codes, storm-resistant roofing, wildfire mitigation practices, or permeable pavement that reduces flood risk, there are opportunities everywhere.
The U.S. has spent over $2.7 trillion on the cumulative cost of disasters since 1980, and $1.1 trillion over the past 10 years alone. Trillions more will be spent rebuilding after disasters over the coming decades, unless we do something differently. While we might not be able to reduce the frequency of climate-driven hazards like heavy rainfall or extreme winds, we can make their destruction less costly and our infrastructure more resilient.
The Epicenter helps infrastructure decision-makers understand climate risks and identify practical, cost-effective resilience solutions.
Whether you're an insurance industry executive seeking climate risk management insights, a local or municipal government official responsible for allocating budgets for resiliency, a builder or commercial real estate leader making portfolio-level decisions on climate-adapted solutions, or a private investor or philanthropist considering expanding your investment thesis to include resilient infrastructure, The Epicenter will keep you on the cutting edge.
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