Integrating Climate Change into Asset Management Planning
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ust as the practice of asset management has been widely adopted among Canadian municipalities, climate change adaptation has become more essential as extreme weather events and a changing climate threaten the resilience of communities. Like the discipline of asset management, climate change adaptation shares an overarching goal of achieving sustainable service delivery and aligns with the core elements of the asset management framework. Figure 2: Pillars of a standard asset management framework that adheres to best practices set forth by ISO 55,000 and the Institute of Asset Management
Figure 1: Similarities between AM and Climate Change Adaptation
Because of their similarities, municipalities looking to incorporate climate change adaptation measures into their organization can do so by integrating measures into their existing asset management framework. ASSESSMENT STAGE The Assessment Stage of the asset management framework requires municipal organizations to consider the ways in which their policies and procedures facilitate an effective and productive program. The asset management policy can be revisited or developed to include a commitment to integrating and addressing climate change adaptation, along with establishing the personnel – such as environmental staff – that have expert understanding of climate change adaptation to facilitate and endorse measures throughout the program.
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Figure 3: Incorporating climate change considerations into an asset management policy
The asset management strategy assesses the capacity, knowledge and processes of an organization’s asset management program. Likewise, the strategy can also assess an organization’s climate change adaptation measures to identify gaps in implementation and how to better prioritize climate change adaptation objectives. PLANNING STAGE The planning stage of the asset management framework includes elements related to data and information, condition assessments and key processes such as risk assessment, lifecycle management and the definition of levels of service.
