Delivering climate responsive resilient building codes and standards (2021)

This report presents the findings of a building codes resilience survey developed by the members of the Global Resiliency Dialogue – the Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB), the National Research Council of Canada, the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment, and the International Code Council (ICC, based in the United States). The survey, which was circulated to a range of diverse building code stakeholders in each of the participating countries, focused on the current challenges and potential strategies to incorporate future-focused climate science and risk in building codes and standards.

It also sought to investigate what further research is needed to advance change and influence effective implementation. This report provides a summary of findings from this survey and is another opportunity for interested parties to better appreciate and outline ongoing efforts and needs in the space of climate adaptation and resilience for new buildings and structures. Specific results and findings from each of the participating countries are presented in standalone reports available on the Global Resiliency Dialogue website.

This survey report details the diverse and complex challenges of enhancing resilience as it relates to building codes and standards. The report confirms that codes remain only part of the solution to achieving climate resilience in the built environment, and outlines their limitations. It highlights the need for a variety of policy instruments to address adaptation, and identifies a few examples. It explores the types of codes ideally required (with an emphasis on buildings), the climate data and evidence needed to support changes to their requirements, as well as how to ensure future codes and standards can incorporate predictive climate data, and how often such data needs to be updated.