Our Roadmap to 2030Lead Organisation
AtkinsRéalis, supported by SWM
Project Delivery team: Beck Collins (Senior Sustainability Adviser), Louis March-Smith (Project & Data Officer)
Overview
Atkins Réalis was commissioned by Gloucester City Council, on behalf of Climate Leadership Gloucester (CLG), to produce a Climate Risk and Vulnerability Report, including a Climate Change Adaptation Plan, for the Gloucestershire region. Using our experience of supporting local authorities with climate change adaptation, and our extensive experience in stakeholder engagement, SWM were subcontracted to Atkins Réalis as stakeholder engagement leads to deliver two workshops and a number of interviews to inform the final report.
Aims
- To analyse UK Climate Change Projections to gain a clearer picture of how Gloucestershire’s climate may change over the course of this century.
- To develop a comprehensive climate change risk and vulnerability assessment for the county.
- To develop a Climate Change Adaptation Plan in response to this which details how Gloucestershire’s people, businesses, infrastructure, natural environment and services need to respond to deal with climate change impacts.
- To engage with many stakeholders across the county to upskill them on climate change adaptation and extract their views on climate risk, impact and response.
Outputs
Through extensive engagement and research, the following outputs have been delivered:
- Two workshops to introduce the importance of climate change adaptation to stakeholders and inform categorisation of climate risks and potential adaptation opportunities that are most relevant and impactful to Gloucestershire.
- An in-depth climate risk and vulnerability assessment report, including climate projections, spatial representation of climate hazards and categorisation of climate change-related risks faced in Gloucestershire.
- Assessment of potential adaptation opportunities to minimise priority risks, focusing on both capital adaptation measures and non-capital measures which are crucial to enabling county wide resilience.
- Recommendations for the types of projects that Gloucestershire County Council, Local Authorities and CLG partners will need to deliver to reduce the impact of current and future climate change and associated extreme weather events.
By way of stakeholder engagement, we:
- Ran an in-person workshop with ~50 stakeholders to introduce the importance of climate adaptation and to hear how they have been impacted by severe weather and what they believe needs to be done to effectively adapt to climate change. This included an exercise to explore the categorisation and ranking of different climate risks to each stakeholder group.
- Conducted ~20 one-to-one online meetings with various stakeholders both internal to the council and from other organisations to ask in- depth questions about climate adaptation, by way of a follow-up to the workshop. An online survey was run alongside to capture the views of a wider range of stakeholders.
- A second, online workshop was held to provide an opportunity for stakeholders to discuss a range of opportunities to minimise the risks identified both at the level of the County Council and of the individual districts. Potential adaptation actions to minimise risks were categorised and ranked based upon ability to address the priority risk, value for money, and complexity.
For further information on the project or to work with us in one of a variety of ways, please see our consultancy page or contact the SWM team on enquiries@swm.org.uk.
