West Midlands Combined Authority: Supporting them with their Adaptation Reporting Power submission

Lead Organisation

AtkinsRéalis, supported by Sustainability West Midlands (SWM)
SWM Project Delivery team: Alan Carr (Climate Change Adaptation Lead), Morgan Roberts (Project Officer)

Overview

Using our experience of supporting organisations with climate change adaptation, SWM worked with AtkinsRéalis to support the WMCA in preparing a response to the Adaptation Reporting Power (ARP). This is a mechanism set up by Defra some years ago to invite organisations to provide their progress on climate change adaptation, but in the main only large companies have been invited to report. Defra are in the throes of a pilot to identify whether the ARP is suitable for local and combined authorities. The WMCA were one of the authorities that put themselves forward to participate in the pilot, and they recruited AtkinsRéalis and SWM to support them with what was required for their submission.

Aims

• To develop a comprehensive climate change risk assessment for WMCA’s service areas.
• To produce an adaptation plan that responds to these risks; this was broken down by WMCA directorate for ease of accountability.
• To provide a set of recommendations to help WMCA further develop their work on adaptation.
• To provide case studies teasing out good practice relating to adaptation that WMCA colleagues had already achieved.

Outputs

Following the extensive engagement and research, a detailed report was produced outlining the risks and potential mitigating actions for each directorate. The case studies were included within this

In terms of our role as stakeholder engagement lead, we were:

• Leading on the logistics, management and chairing of five online workshops with different directorates, facilitating in-depth discussions on climate risks and potential actions that befall their provision of service.
• Conducting one-to-one interviews with a selection of other individuals who could not attend the workshops mentioned above

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.