Climate change adaptation examples for your organisation

Climate change adaptation examples for a warmer climate

With an increase in temperature, heat waves are becoming more common around the world. What is a climate action plan to cool down your indoor spaces and the surrounding environment sustainably?

Climate change adaptation examples that help with cooling include green and blue infrastructures. These infrastructures may involve increasing the numbers of trees and plants surrounding the buildings for a cooling effect, as well as expanding the number of fountains or ponds. These natural features help manage heat, as trees create shadow and cool things down through evapotranspiration. Meanwhile, bodies of water can also help through evaporation or mist. Roofs painted in white on the other hand help reflect light, also reducing the heat buildup.

Other climate change adaptation examples to protect from a rising temperature are adopting a more energy efficient cooling system. Air conditioning powered with solar energy can help achieve this. The insulation of buildings can also be improved to reduce the effect of outside air temperature and to ensure lower energy consumption to keep inside areas cool.

It can be equally useful to take action which doesn’t require adapting physical infrastructure. Changing your working schedule so you don’t work during the hottest time of the day can help reduce exhaustion and risk of heat stroke. There’s a reason why Siesta is a thing, right?

Climate change adaptation examples for a drier climate

Climate change can impact rain patterns, making some areas more arid. This can lead to challenges with water scarcity and even desertification. Climate change adaptation examples for drier climate revolve mostly around water management. For instance, rain water can be collected and saved for use in drier periods. 

Improving the efficiency of water use in industrial processes and irrigation are especially important, as these are some of the sectors with the most water consumption. In daily life, offices and organisations can implement water savings policies. Increasing awareness on the usage of water and discussing water policies with colleagues can facilitate their implementation and increase climate change awareness and action in your organisation.

Otherwise, a more hands-on approach could be taken by installing water-efficient appliances when old appliances need to be replaced. Fixing possible leaks in the water pipes can also save a considerable amount of water.

Some sectors are particularly dependent on seasonal variations, including agriculture, tourism and seasonal equipment production. Their operations are already impacted by climate change. How to be more sustainable at work is even more important under these conditions. 

Let’s take an example to see how an organisation is tackling relevant seasonal changes due to climate change. Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) is a Canadian outerwear company, whose operations are intrinsically impacted by weather conditions and the length of seasons. As climate change induces more variability to the seasons, MEC may need to produce less products for the winter season and focus more on summer equipment. The company has taken steps to include climate considerations at the highest level of management so that climate risk assessments can be used as the basis of business planning for the upcoming year. 

Using weather forecasting, they are able to better estimate the need for products in the upcoming year. Climate change is also impacting their supply chain, as droughts may affect cotton production in certain areas. Therefore, they have diversified the locations of raw material production to reduce dependency on certain producers.