SusTech Talks #7 – Better Environmental Assessment Tools Help Property Owners, Investors & Lenders Cope with Increasing Flood, Extreme Weather and Climate Risks

 

SusTech 2021 is hosting monthly talks on Sustainability topics in 2021.

“Better Environmental Assessment Tools Help Property Owners, Investors & Lenders Cope with Increasing Flood, Extreme Weather and Climate Risks”

with Albert J. Slap of RiskFootprint™/Coastal Risk Consulting, LLC

Date: June 22, 2021
Time: 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM PDT

Registration info: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/272951

Abstract:

Automated risk assessment tools allow owners, developers, investors, and lenders to identify properties that are particularly vulnerable to physical risks. This enables resources to be focused on vulnerable sites for further risk assessments or management by tying hazards/risks to individual buildings.

A comprehensive resilience assessment takes a lot of time and resources, requiring use of different tools and platforms to put together a full picture of the risks and their severity. Imagine if you could just type in an address and instantly receive a full resilience risk report for any property in the U.S.

RiskFootprint, developed by company Coastal Risk Consulting, looks at 14 types of risk, including wildfire, pluvial (extreme rainfall) and fluvial (riverine) flooding, earthquakes, and wind, plus 2050 climate impacts like extreme heat, rainfall, and drought.

A LEED-certified building currently doesn’t have to take any of these risks into account, despite the fact that they threaten an asset’s durability and lifetime. To fully understand a project’s sustainability, we need to stop looking only at what our buildings are doing to the planet, he said, and also start taking into account what the planet might do to our buildings.

Biography:

Albert J. Slap is President and Co-Founder of Coastal Risk Consulting, LLC, a geospatial technology, modeling, data analytics and advisory services firm located in Boca Raton, FL. Coastal Risk’s technology empowers individuals, businesses, and governments in the US and globally to accelerate resilience to floods, natural hazards and climate impacts. Prior to launching Coastal Risk, Mr. Slap was a nationally recognized, environmental trial attorney and law professor. Over the years, Mr. Slap used America’s environmental laws to protect public health and the environment by stopping water and air pollution, toxic waste dumping, and by requiring local governments to replace aging and polluting sewer infrastructure. For his outstanding legal work, Mr. Slap was the recipient in 2014 of the prestigious Marjory Stoneman Douglas “Defender of the Everglades Award.

See https://www.buildinggreen.com/newsbrief/new-resilience-tool-riskfootprint-gets-nod-usgbc