Lead Organisation
Sustainability West Midlands
Project Manager: Alan Carr (Senior Sustainability Adviser)
Overview
Using our experience of supporting local authorities with climate change adaptation, SWM was commissioned by Rugby Borough Council to produce a Climate Change Adaptation Plan for the borough, a climate change risk assessment, and a Technical Report that analyses how climate change may affect Rugby Borough in future.
Aims
- To analyse UK Climate Change Projections to gain a clearer picture of how Rugby Borough’s climate may change over the course of this century; we worked with our Associate Ailsa Gibson to do this.
- To develop a Climate Change Risk Assessment summarising the key risks Rugby Borough will face.
- To develop a Climate Change Adaptation Plan in response to this which details how we feel Rugby Borough’s people, businesses, infrastructure, natural environment and services need to respond to deal with climate change impacts.
- To engage with many stakeholders across the Borough and wider area to upskill them on climate change adaptation and extract their views on climate risk, impact and response
The Outputs
Through extensive engagement and research, the following outputs have been delivered:
- A Technical Report outlining the future climate change projections for Rugby Borough.
- A climate change risk assessment for Rugby Borough (embedded into the below document).
- The main resource: a Climate Change Adaptation Plan for Rugby Borough.
Hyperlinks to the above outputs will be included when they are published.
By way of stakeholder engagement, we:
- 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 and their perception of risk.
- Ran an online engagement session with community group representatives, assisted by the Warwickshire and West Midlands Association of Local Councils (WALC), to find out how climate change and severe weather is affecting them on the ground.
- Ran a session with elected council members to hear their thoughts on what should be included in the draft climate change adaptation plan.
Links to the main outputs will be included upon their publication.
“We wanted to work with SWM on this important agenda as they are leading the way on catalysing the Borough’s approach to climate change adaptation. We were very pleased with the way they prioritised stakeholder engagement to ensure the Plan is as relevant to Rugby Borough as possible, and the action plan gives us a clear way forward on what we as a council needs to do next, and who we need to work with on this difficult subject. The professionalism and expertise offered by SWM throughout the process ensured the delivery of a high quality product which met our specification. I would highly recommend them to any local authority wanting to start work on climate change adaptation.” – Dan Green, Deputy Chief Executive, Rugby Borough Council.
Download the full case study
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.
