2015 GLISA Small Grant: Development of an Adaptation Toolkit for Resiliency Champions at Businesses and Institutions in the West Michigan Region
This project developed resources for business resiliency champions to lead their organization through a vulnerability assessment. The assessments were informed by predicted industry impacts and historical climate data and projections. Outcomes of the assessment include 1) identifying systems to monitor with respect to identified threats and opportunities, as well as 2) increased communication with internal and external stakeholders. The West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum (WMSBF) lead this work by guiding four representative organizations in the West Michigan area through such an assessment. The participating organizations included a hospitality/restaurant chain, manufacturer, health care system, and public school system all located in the Grand Rapids area. These pilot cases serve as illustrative examples to other organizations in their industry networks and the community in general, encouraging use of the adaptation toolkit and awareness of climate risk among relevant decision-makers.
WMSBF partnered with a sustainability consulting group that developed a climate risk matrix that provided a preliminary assessment of an organization’s vulnerability to climate change and where to direct further efforts. GLISA’s role was to work with WMSBF and their partners (through informal phone calls, surveys, and meetings lead by WMSBF) to identify the most relevant climate hazards and develop a custom 2-page Grand Rapid’s summary of the historical trends and future projections for those hazards. Climate information provided in the 2-page summary included extreme heat and cold events (hot/cold days, heat waves), flood indicators (heavy rain at different time intervals), winter storms (snowfall, freezing rain), freeze thaw cycles, wind storms, and drought indicators.
Project Accomplishments
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Custom Grand Rapids, MI climate summary of specific weather and climate thresholds that included a historical description and future projection of trends
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Final toolkit available at: climate.wmsbf.org (forthcoming)
Research Findings
The resiliency assessment process provided and educational opportunity for decision makers on how an organization might be vulnerable to climate change. The effort inspired organizations to pursue climate adaptation planning and augment andy existing contingency plans to include climate projections.
Project Partners: Daniel Schoonmaker, West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum
GLISA Contact: Omar Gates, Climatologist: gateso@umich.edu