How can buildings, cities and infrastructure be designed today to withstand tomorrow's extreme weather without increasing their environmental impact? This article looks at the role of planners, financiers, policy makers, designers and insurers, and at how concrete supports climate resilience.
By Dr Andrew Minson and Nicolas Antoniou, Global Cement and Concrete Association
Photo: Pexels
1. Introduction
Climate change is making extreme weather more frequent and more intense: floods, storms, droughts, fires, heatwaves and sea-level rise. This challenges the safety and functioning of buildings and cities.
The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction defines resilience as:
"The ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate, adapt to, transform and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions through risk management."
Resilience is therefore essential to sustainable development. It protects communities and keeps essential services running after a hazardous event. Cities and infrastructure that are not resilient face rising costs, stranded assets and social disruption with every extreme event.
At the same time, the construction sector must reduce its environmental footprint. Buildings and infrastructure must be designed for both climate resilience and decarbonisation, so that adaptation does not increase lifecycle environmental impacts.
2. Balancing resilience and sustainable design: the role of key stakeholders
2.1 Planning for resilience
Resilience starts at the earliest planning stages. The OECD report Infrastructure for a Climate-Resilient Future (2024) says climate change should be a chief consideration when planning new buildings and infrastructure. Planners should use future climate projections rather than relying only on historical weather data. Building resilience into planning decisions can greatly reduce long-term climate risk. This may include identifying vulnerable areas, limiting development in hazard-prone zones and carrying out flood risk assessments.
2.2 Financing resilient buildings and infrastructure
Infrastructure that can withstand extreme weather often needs more upfront investment. In some cases, choosing the right materials can deliver resilience at no extra cost. Many studies show that investing in resilience pays off over the long term. Buildings and infrastructure that withstand extreme events reduce repair costs, economic disruption and loss of life.
According to the World Bank, investing in resilient infrastructure in low- and middle-income countries could generate benefits of around four dollars for every dollar invested, by reducing damage and improving service reliability.
Key financing mechanisms include:
- Public investment: governments remain the main investors in housing and in infrastructure such as transport, flood protection and water systems. Building climate resilience requirements into public procurement and infrastructure planning ensures publicly funded projects are designed for future climate conditions.
- Public-private partnerships: these can mobilise private capital for resilient infrastructure, supporting large-scale development while sharing financial risk between public authorities and private investors.
- Private investment: insurers and financial institutions increasingly include climate risk in investment decisions. Projects with strong resilience are often seen as lower-risk, which can improve financing terms.
- Household investment: in many developing countries, much housing is paid for directly by households. Better access to resilient construction materials and technical guidance can greatly improve the resilience of these self-funded homes without putting too much financial pressure on households.
2.3 Policy enablers
Resilient infrastructure needs the right policies in place. Key policy enablers include:
- Climate-resilient building codes and infrastructure standards
- Incentives for durable, low-carbon construction
- Investment in resilient infrastructure systems
- Lifecycle carbon assessment in infrastructure procurement
2.4 Design
Designing for resilience means choosing durable, robust materials and combining them with engineering and architectural understanding of the relevant hazards, following the relevant guidance and standards. It must also support climate mitigation, taking a whole-life carbon approach that considers both embodied and operational emissions over the asset's life. Choosing durable materials, optimising structural design and using passive building strategies can together reduce total lifecycle emissions while improving resilience to extreme weather.
2.5 Insurance
Insurers play an important role in promoting resilient, sustainable construction by building climate risk into underwriting, pricing and investment. By assessing how exposed buildings and infrastructure are to climate hazards, insurers can encourage resilient design and durable materials that reduce long-term risk. Projects with strong resilience are often seen as lower-risk assets, which can lead to better insurance terms and lower premiums.
3. The role of concrete in climate resilience
Concrete is widely used in the built environment for its strength, durability and versatility. These same properties make it well suited to buildings and infrastructure exposed to extreme weather.
Strength and durability
Concrete structures are designed to withstand significant loads and environmental stress. Their durability lets infrastructure such as bridges, dams and coastal defences keep performing over long periods with little maintenance.
A long service life is a key part of sustainability. Infrastructure that lasts longer needs fewer repairs and replacements, which reduces lifecycle emissions and resource use.
Resistance to natural hazards
Concrete performs well in extreme conditions including storms, floods and fires. It does not burn, rot or warp, and it keeps its structural integrity even in severe conditions. This matters most for critical infrastructure such as hospitals, transport, energy networks and water systems.
Extreme heat
Concrete's thermal mass lets it absorb and release heat slowly, helping to keep indoor temperatures stable. This can reduce overheating during heatwaves and lower demand for energy-intensive cooling. As heatwaves become more frequent, thermal mass will play a growing role in protecting occupants and improving building performance.
Water and flood management
Concrete also supports climate-resilient water management through flood defences, drainage systems and permeable paving that reduces surface runoff. These systems help cities cope with more intense rainfall while offering the durability needed for long-term performance.
4. Guidance and standards that cite concrete to increase resilience and reduce risk
The table below gives examples of guidance and standards that point to, or require, certain materials.
| Risk and source | Details |
|---|---|
| Wind FEMA P-361, Safe Rooms for Tornadoes and Hurricanes: Guidance for Community and Residential Safe Rooms | "Many safe room wall and roof assemblies that have passed previous missile impact tests and can be demonstrated through calculations to resist extreme wind pressures have fire separation ratings of 2 hours or more. Such assemblies include reinforced masonry and reinforced concrete (including precast panels and insulated concrete forms). Wood-framed assemblies can meet the 2-hour fire separation through incorporation of gypsum sheathing. However, this path to compliance for safe rooms constructed with steel panels has proven cost ineffective." |
| Wind 2025 FORTIFIED Home Standard | "Screw-in soil anchors are not considered a permanent anchorage and cannot be used as any part of the required permanent foundation unless their heads are restrained from lateral movement by embedment in a reinforced concrete footing or concrete slab." "All bearing walls, piers, and columns must be installed on and connected to acceptable footings or a concrete slab." |
| Fire RISCAuthority (2022), Insurance challenges of massive timber construction | "It is the general experience of insurers that massive timber building designs are being proposed of a form and at a construction scale that is running ahead of current scientific understanding, testing and research which therefore cannot fulfil the insurance information requirements." "It is also worth noting that many materials that perform well in fire are also often more tolerant of water exposure, such as concrete." |
| Fire IBHS Wildfire Prepared Home standards | "All exterior walls shall have at least 6-inches of non-combustible material (e.g. exposed concrete foundation, ...)" "Noncombustible hardscape materials e.g., gravel, pavers, river rocks, decomposed granite, steppingstones, and concrete are permitted." |
| Flood BS 85500: Flood resilient buildings | A ground-bearing cast in-situ concrete floor remains the recommended ground floor construction for buildings at risk of flooding. This comprises a minimum 150 mm concrete slab over a robust, continuous damp proof membrane with appropriate closed-cell insulation. Timber-framed walls are "not recommended for a water exclusion strategy" and "generally not recommended" for a water entry strategy unless materials are to be stripped from the walls to allow them to dry. The potential for fungal growth, decay, warping and distortion are all listed as potential impacts when timber frame is in contact with water. |
References
OECD (2024). Infrastructure for a Climate-Resilient Future. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
World Bank and Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) (2019). Lifelines: The Resilient Infrastructure Opportunity. Washington, DC: World Bank.
