Assessing Climate Risk: Best Practices for Commercial Buildings

By Better Buildings Beat Team on Feb 10, 2021

Better Buildings commercial real estate partners LBA Realty and CBRE participated in the Better Buildings Webinar “Climate Risk Assessments: Commercial Buildings & Portfolio Resilience” to share their unique solutions to climate risk factors in their respective portfolios. The session focused on how commercial real estate property owners are utilizing climate risk assessments and mitigation efforts to protect occupants, interior systems and equipment, and physical assets.

Both partners are using climate risk assessments to strengthen efforts toward building and portfolio resilience. Climate risk assessments are the first step to understanding what climate factors the property could be at risk of, including floods, heat stress, wind events, sea-level rise, water stress, and wildfires.

LBA gave an overview of its climate risk assessment process, which spans its entire portfolio. LBA's multi-step assessment process ensured all necessary actions were considered and that the right parties were included in process development. Best practices and tips from LBA included:

  • Gain executive support
  • Leverage your network
  • Engage stakeholders
  • Create a comprehensive process

 

Read more about LBA’s process for assessing climate risk in its newly-published Implementation Model.

CBRE shared multiple case studies, highlighting a deep dive on the climate risk mitigation process for several properties across its portfolio. The case studies, which highlighted sites in Boston and South Florida, described the climate risk checklist process that the sustainability team went through to find and mitigate climate risks at these properties. CBRE focused on the importance of digging into details in the climate risk process. For example, two sites across the street from each other had different sea level rise scores because of proximity to a nearby canal. The granularity of a climate risk assessment allows organizations to get insights on a portfolio-wide and building-specific level.

CBRE’s process is also shared in an Implementation Model, written on behalf of Better Buildings Partner, DWS.

To learn more about what Better Buildings is doing to address resilience and climate risks, visit the Better Buildings Solution Center and the Resilience homepage.