How to Rethink Infrastructure for Climate Resilience

An Interesting Shift in Real Estate Infrastructure: Rise of Resilience Hubs 🏗️ I'm seeing an intriguing development in how real estate is responding to climate and infrastructure challenges. Resilience hubs—buildings that combine community spaces, emergency services, and clean energy systems—are creating some unexpected market dynamics. Here's a pattern worth examining: 1. Market Evolution Traditional emergency preparedness relied on standalone backup generators. Now we're seeing multi-purpose facilities emerge that serve daily community needs while providing emergency support. The A.B. Ford Community Center in Detroit illustrates this approach—their solar + storage system provides both daily benefits and emergency backup while opening access to new funding streams. 2. Risk Assessment Shifts Insurance markets are beginning to evaluate these facilities differently. In regions where climate risks affect insurability, resilience hubs appear to be influencing risk calculations. This suggests potential changes ahead in how we value distributed energy infrastructure. 3. Business Model Development The economics are particularly interesting. Public-private partnerships are emerging that combine federal funding (FEMA BRIC grants, IRA incentives) with community services. A new project in O'ahu demonstrates this approach—integrating community programming, cultural spaces, and resilience features in what appears to be a sustainable financial model. What caught my attention is how this trend connects multiple market shifts—from infrastructure financing to property valuation to community development. It suggests some interesting possibilities for how real estate assets might evolve. Curious to hear from others in real estate and energy: What infrastructure trends are you observing in your markets? How are climate considerations influencing development approaches? #RealEstate #Infrastructure #Resilience #CleanEnergy #Development

You Need a Resilience Sherpa, Not a "Bad News" Bear! Due to increasing damage and loss from flooding, natural hazards, extreme weather, and climate change, the commercial real estate sector needs to shift its efforts from ESG-type reporting to actually making its economically-important buildings safer and more resilient in a changing climate. Commercial real estate stakeholders need to prioritize resilience and safety in response to climate change and extreme weather. While Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting is important for transparency and accountability, it's time to pivot towards actionable strategies that make our buildings truly resilient. Here are some key steps we can consider: Retrofitting and Upgrading: Implementing advanced materials and technologies to enhance structural integrity and resistance to extreme weather. Elevating Key Infrastructure: Protecting critical components like electrical systems and HVAC units by placing them above potential flood levels. Green Building Design: Incorporating sustainable design principles that not only reduce environmental impact but also improve a building’s ability to withstand natural hazards. Risk Assessment and Planning: Conducting thorough risk assessments to identify vulnerabilities and develop robust disaster response plans. Community Collaboration: Working with local governments and communities to create broader resilience strategies, including emergency preparedness and recovery plans. Making these proactive investments can significantly reduce damage and losses, ensuring that buildings remain safe and operational even in the face of challenging conditions. RiskFootprint(tm) is your "Resilience Sherpa". We take you from the initial hazard assessment through the RFP-stage and implementation of successful, risk-mitigation investments. Find out more at RiskFootprint dot com. #ESG #TCFD #riskassessment #riskmanagement #riskfootprint #ASTM #PropertyResilienceAssessment #ESAPhase1 #PCA

Real estate owners and operators need to start thinking about risk differently. We tend to focus on the immediate causes of disasters—wildfires, floods, extreme weather—but often miss the bigger picture: resilience is just as important as risk. I recently spoke with Dr. Parag Khanna (Founder & CEO AlphaGeo) about how cities can better prepare for climate threats, and one thing stuck with me: we don’t just need better risk models—we need better adaptation strategies. His company AlphaGeo uses advanced machine learning techniques to downscale projections of heat, storm, flood, fire, drought, sea level rise and other climate risks. A few takeaways: 1. It’s not just about location—it’s about preparation. High-risk areas like LA or Phoenix aren’t inherently doomed. The issue is a lack of investment in adaptation—fire detection, water management, and infrastructure designed for long-term resilience. 2. We need to shift from reactive to proactive. The cost of rebuilding after a crisis far outweighs the cost of preventing it in the first place. Yet time and time again, cities fail to take obvious steps until it’s too late. 3. Real estate plays a massive role in future-proofing cities. The industry can’t wait for government action—we need to lead in deploying technology, investing in resilient infrastructure, and designing cities that can withstand climate stress. Some cities are getting this right. Singapore has been planning for rising sea levels for decades. The Netherlands pioneered water management systems hundreds of years ago. In the U.S., we still treat climate events as surprises rather than inevitabilities. There’s an opportunity here—not just to mitigate risk, but to rethink how we build, insure, and invest in real estate for the future.

Climate change isn’t some future scenario. We’ve entered the age of climate adaptation. The 2010 U.S. Climate Assessment made that clear 15 years ago. Emergency managers didn’t need a report to tell us—we were already seeing it in the field: ▪️ Rising temps and heat waves across the country ▪️ Stronger, slower, wetter storms ▪️ Flooding in places that never used to flood ▪️ Droughts that don’t break ▪️ Year-round wildfire seasons out West—and wildfire risk growing nationwide That report wasn’t a warning. It was a status update. Fast forward to today: we’re not preparing for climate change—we’re living in it. Disasters are hitting harder, faster, and more often. And we don’t get off seasons anymore. The big problem? Most of our infrastructure and emergency systems were built for the weather of the past. The planning assumptions we used no longer apply. What used to be rare is now routine. What used to be manageable now overwhelms. And now the financial system is feeling it too. We’re facing an insurance crisis—driven by repeated billion-dollar disasters, escalating wildfire risk, and the rising cost of recovery. When insurers pull out or premiums skyrocket, the real risk shifts back to the homeowner, the local government, and ultimately to us—the emergency managers on the ground. But we’ve learned what works: Stronger building codes and land use decisions based on future risk, not just the last disaster—where and how we build matters Local plans based on what’s likely, not what’s easy Stop pouring all the money into response—invest in resilience Break down the silos—public safety, health, schools, utilities—we’re stronger together Use better tools—Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) modeling can help us see what’s coming And most importantly—treat the public like part of the team, not part of the problem Here’s what emergency managers can do: lead. Even when politics get in the way. Even when others hesitate. In the absence of leadership—lead. We don’t need perfect forecasts. We need to act. 📄 Read the 2010 report: U.S. Climate Assessment (PDF) #EmergencyManagement #ClimateAdaptation #DisasterResponse #WholeCommunity #Resilience #InsuranceCrisis

No One Builds a Floodwall Alone It’s easy to imagine climate resilience as a checklist. Raise your house, buy insurance, move valuables upstairs. But if Texas has proven anything this month, it’s that there are limits to what we can handle alone. More than a foot of rain fell in East Texas in 48 hours. The Trinity River hit its highest flood stage in over a decade. Some towns saw their fourth “100-year” flood in ten years. Over 600 water rescues took place, and saturated ground means the risk isn’t over: more severe flooding is forecast this week. The science is clear. Warmer air holds more water—about 7% more per degree Celsius—making heavy rain more frequent and intense. In Texas, days with 3+ inches of rain have nearly doubled since the 1970s. Droughts dry soil, reducing its ability to absorb water—so more rain runs off, causing flash floods. Insurance coverage is shrinking: less than 15% of Texas homes have flood insurance, and many policies exclude the “surface water” flooding now most common. After a string of disasters, FEMA funds are stretched to the brink; Congress had to bail out the Disaster Relief Fund last year. Counties urge homeowners to “harden” properties, but grants and technical help lag far behind need. Floods, like wildfires, show the cost of thinking resilience is DIY. When each household is left to fend for itself, the least resourced are stranded first. But even those with means discover that, in a regional disaster, private fixes don’t scale. A raised house is little comfort if the street is impassable, the water is contaminated, and neighbors are gone. Here’s the uncomfortable truth: resilience isn’t just about what you do for yourself. It’s what we build together—shared risk, strong infrastructure, coordinated response. The more climate shocks we face, the clearer it gets: some problems can only be solved at the scale of communities, not individuals. So how do we act together? Real resilience comes from what we pool, not just what we patch. It means investing in public infrastructure—stormwater systems, levees, better building codes—that protect whole neighborhoods. It means insurance that spreads risk across regions, so one town’s disaster doesn’t bankrupt everyone. It means buyouts and relocations run at scale, with transparent rules and shared costs—not just GoFundMe campaigns after the floodwaters rise. And most of all, it means planning for the next disaster before it hits. Cities and states need to update risk maps, set priorities, and direct resources where they’ll have the most impact—especially for those most at risk. Personal responsibility still matters. But in the end, resilience is something we can only build—literally—together. #climaterisk #floodresilience #publicinfrastructure #adaptation #science #insurance #collectiveaction #texasfloods