Building a Climate-Resilient City: The built environment

This policy brief outlines strategies for enhancing resilience in the built environment to combat climate change, focusing on robust design, the mitigation of urban heat island effects, and the adoption of sustainable architectural and planning protocols.

• Buildings face increasing climate stresses, including more frequent co-occurrences of shocks like episodic snow loads and rain-on-snow events. To address this, tools such as the Climate Change Hazards Information Portal and the PIEVC protocol are available to help asset managers and developers evaluate climate risk, offering long-term strategic advantages to cities.
• The built environment contributes to urban heat island (UHI) effects that can be fatal for infirm and elderly populations during heat waves. Mitigation strategies include the maintenance of cooling stations and spatial planning that incorporates the strategic use of green space.
• Resilience to climate change impacts is encouraged through district-planning paradigms like EcoDistricts and architectural protocols such as LEED, which promote community dynamics and resource use patterns that increase resilience.

APA

Venema,, J. T. D. (2017). Building a Climate-Resilient City: The built environment. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/publications/brief/building-climate-resilient-city-built-environment

Chicago

Venema,, Jennifer Temmer,Henry David. Building a Climate-Resilient City: The built environment. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2017. https://www.iisd.org/publications/brief/building-climate-resilient-city-built-environment.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Venema, |first1=Jennifer Temmer,Henry David |title=Building a Climate-Resilient City: The built environment |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=24 April 2017 |url=https://www.iisd.org/publications/brief/building-climate-resilient-city-built-environment |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{venema2017building, author = {Venema,, Jennifer Temmer,Henry David}, title = {{Building a Climate-Resilient City: The built environment}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2017}, month = apr, url = {https://www.iisd.org/publications/brief/building-climate-resilient-city-built-environment}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }