Resilience Building in Action

Climate Adaptation Projects Standard

Across the globe, we are experiencing significant destruction of infrastructure and community assets along with loss of livelihoods, ecosystems and human lives due to climate-related and other extreme events. These losses are often tied to poor resilience planning across the key systems (social, institutional and economic) that exacerbate the losses and do not protect communities in the time of need. Hundreds of local authorities—and surely soon to be thousands in low and medium income countries—have developed (or are in the process of developing) their local adaptation and resilience plans to confront the realities of these losses with long term sustainable solutions. However, all too often, the adaptation plans are designed with a level of complexity that makes them inaccessible to local communities and project owners, thereby inhibiting quick and effective action to address their relevant climate challenges. Further, many of these plans lack a holistic framework and guidance for developing strategies and design to secure the necessary public and private investments for their priorities. 

In partnership with Gold Standard (GS), the international sustainable impact standards organization, RCC  developed a new international Adaptation Standard to guide the design, implementation, and verification of climate adaptation projects in OECD and middle to low income economies. The goal of this new Adaptation Standard is to streamline planning and implementation of climate adaptation projects, demonstrate what is needed to develop best in class adaptation projects, and strengthen the alignment between adaptation projects and investment. Unlike existing frameworks, the Standard assesses adaptation at the level of a project which has two key benefits. First, it drives finance to the investee or project developer(s) and second, it allows investors to screen ‘shovel-worthy’ climate adaptation projects in compliance with international adaptation frameworks. By defining a project design standard within the emerging national and local adaptation frameworks, the Standard aims to support both public authorities and the private sector to cost-effectively and credibly develop portfolios with best in class local adaptation/resilience projects.  

For project developers and impact investors (including national and city governments, corporate, philanthropic organization and international development organizations) the Standard’s robust set of requirements and guidance frameworks provide a process for aligning the design and preparation of individual infrastructure projects with the requirements of national and local adaptation plans as well as those of public and private finance providers. The standard will also act as a common resource between the different actors, siloed disciplines, and institutional spheres that must coordinate efforts in building and scaling new arenas of resilience practice. The Standard contributes to both the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), other related global 2030 development agendas and the Paris Climate Agreement by providing a framework for mobilization of finance towards adaptation, which is desperately needed to avoid losses triggered by climate change. 

The Adaptation Standard was developed in close partnership and consultation with over 50 global and local leaders across sectors and disciplines, who together provided nearly 200 hours of review and guidance. To test the Standard’s requirements and guidance frameworks, we collaborated with the City of Pittsburgh through their Greenways project, which aims to maintain over 600 acres of steep hillsides prone to landslides due to heavy rainfall. The piloting process enabled the City and its partners to identify funding, governance and technical gaps and opportunities to help curtail future losses and devise necessary actions for increasing resilience. RCC and Gold Standard are currently scoping a second pilot project within a lower-income economy to further refine the Standard. This pilot will include a public consultation process to provide stakeholders the opportunity to comment and contribute to the building of a comprehensive international adaptation standard.

If you would like to be notified about the consultation, please send an email to the project’s manager, Shail Joshi (sjoshi@rcc.city).