Mainstreaming climate resilience
The Climate Action Strategy has established a Mainstreaming Climate Resilience project aimed at embedding resilience in all the City of London Corporation's operations and responsibilities. We have invested in upskilling teams across the City Corporation to help make operational and strategic decisions climate resilient.
The City Corporation plays vital roles across the Square Mile, Greater London and the Southeast. Over recent years we have seen how some of these could be susceptible to six climate resilience risks. These are flooding, overheating, pests and diseases, water stress, disruptions to food, trade and infrastructure and biodiversity loss, as identified in 2020 as part of our Adaptive Pathways Study.
This project will contribute to a climate resilience vision of:
- A future where the risks of climate related emergencies or new pest and disease outbreaks in the City's Port and Market operations is minimised and food security is not impacted by climate change.
- A future where the City's communities benefit from a fair and equitable transition to a climate resilient City with open access to data, knowledge and skills resulting in collaborative climate responses.
- A future where the health and wellbeing of the City's communities is enhanced through the development of a climate-ready City.
To become a climate ready city we are carrying out some key actions:
We are engaging with stakeholders to assess the feasibility of a pest and diseases 'Horizon Scanning Research Programme'. The City Corporation plays a key role in responding to emerging pests and diseases through its Port Health and Public Protection function. To ensure we are prepared, we need to identify the risks across the City Corporation's assets and coordinate our responses to climate related pests and diseases in a more efficient way. To minimise the impacts of climate change on our ports and markets we are carrying out an operational resilience planning review of the City Corporation's services. This exercise will form a resilience action plan for each of our departments.
Co-ordination and training is key to ensuring resilience is considered throughout every stage of decision-making. We are doing this by:
- Expanding the use of open-source data to monitor the measures we put in place and will continue to embed and review equality and inclusion in our programmes.
- Delivering a cross-organisational training programme to strengthen skills and capabilities on resilience for our officers and embed climate resilience into our governance and planning processes.
- Updated our Responsible Procurement Guidance to strengthen resilience considerations in both the things we purchase and the way we purchase them.
We aim to deliver a climate ready public health programme across the Square Mile and build community and business adaptive capacity. We will ensure our open spaces are resilient by supporting our teams through education and support on climate resilience and adaptation. A vital part of what we do is ensuring we share our learning and deliver public awareness campaigns to support resilience and adaptation beyond the City Corporation.
A climate action staff survey was launched at the end of 2023 across the City Corporation, highlighting that more staff wanted to be involved in tackling climate change at both work and at home. As a result, in 2024, we launched the internal Climate Champions Network available for any staff member to join. The network launch took place at Mansion House with opening remarks from the Lord Mayor.
The Climate Champions Network aims to provide opportunities to learn and apply new skills, participate in volunteering, influence and inspire colleagues and communities, as well as creating a safe, open space to discuss any climate-related thoughts or concerns.
The City Corporation has installed a network of new smart sensors. The sensors have been placed throughout the Square Mile in public places such as on lamp posts and railings, whilst others are placed in drainage gullies. The sensors measure factors such as temperature, air, pressure, soil moisture and rainfall, to provide crucial insight into the impacts of climate change locally, within the City.
We will be harnessing this data to understand how successful our current resilience interventions are, from urban greening to sustainable drainage systems, helping to identify what further interventions are needed. In future it may be possible to create a warning system for extreme weather events, like flooding or water stress, to keep disruption within the City to a minimum.