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, Joe 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.
As the climate crisis exposes broader swaths of the U.S. to severe weather, responsible future-proofing strategies must account not only for fortified development but also for comprehensive cleanup. Real resilience can't exist without effective remediation first.
Over the last 15 years, Rhode Island has seen cataclysmic inland flooding, tornadoes, and rapidly rising sea levels wearing away at its coast. But the state plans to be a safer, more stable place to live in 50 years.
From hurricane- and flood-prone coasts to Tornado Alley spanning the central U.S., the map of American data centers increasingly resembles a target board for extreme weather.
States are seeing their emergency reserves shrink for the first time since the Great Recession. The path forward is a new, two-pronged pro-growth, pro-resilience model that expands the state’s economic base while simultaneously modernizing the financial tools used to protect it.
Last week, New York City experienced another round of flash flooding thanks to a violent downpour, highlighting a thorny question: When do you harden infrastructure against stormwater, and when do you work with it?
The Epicenter editors recently interviewed Daniel Zarrilli, former Chief Resilience Officer for New York City and current Chief Climate & Sustainability Officer at Columbia University, about his work during the post-Hurricane Sandy recovery effort.
Each time the federal government closes, it reinforces a simple truth: the center can no longer hold. The work of building resilient infrastructure and communities must now happen locally.
The majority of U.S. infrastructure is funded, built, and maintained by city councils, county boards, and state legislatures. But aging infrastructure, escalating climate risk, and other factors are converging to leave local communities less prepared to absorb their growing risk.
Historically, strong federal environmental regulations drove government action to manage water resources -- that’s changing as more communities experience flooding and see the benefits of nature-based solutions to mitigate those impacts.
Municipal leaders have an opportunity to lead their communities to a resilient future and mitigate flood risk. A case study from Algonquin, IL highlights resiliency investments that have fundamentally transformed how flooding affects the community and have yielded significant cost savings.
