Event Description

Climate change is not a new issue to commercial real estate, but it is one that can be very challenging to address. Failure to develop a comprehensive resilience program that is integrated into the overall business strategy can come at a high cost, endangering building occupants, stranding assets, and resulting in non-compliance with mandatory laws or reporting schemes. In this session, experts will take attendees through the process of building a resilience program as a commercial real estate owner, operator, and developer. Presenters will cover the basics of who should own the program, responsible parties for strategy development and implementation, and key partners to involve and then dive deeper into the technical analysis and solutions required to build and operate resilient assets. 

Tavia Danch (Stok) will set the stage with the importance of climate change resilience for commercial real estate as well as current industry standards and regulations around climate change reporting. Lindsay Ross (Moody’s), a specialist in physical climate risk assessment, will dive deeper into key physical risks for commercial real estate owners and operators and expand on methodologies and tools for analyzing these risks. Hewson Baltzell (Helios Exchange), a transition risk expert, will educate attendees on what transition risks are as well as the current landscape for reporting transition. Lou Raiola (Nova Group) will discuss how commercial real estate owners can take these physical and transition risk assessments and turn them into actionable mitigation plans at the asset level. As moderator, Kelly will tie all these elements together and bring the owner’s perspective with a case study on how her client Woodbourne Capital Management developed a comprehensive and integrated climate change program that aligns with TCFD (Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures) reporting. 

Attendees will leave with the framework and tools to develop a comprehensive climate change resilience program that is integrated into their organization’s ESG program, overall business, and risk strategy.
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