With so many awareness days crowding our calendars, Steve Maslen, our Head of Environment and Sustainability, discusses JBA's Climate Resilience Week and the benefits of focussing our collective attention on resilience, providing opportunities to share and celebrate contributions and creating a springboard for further discussion, partnership and inspiration.
JBA Climate Resilience Week - just another awareness day?
"We seem to have many more ‘awareness days’ or ‘something or other weeks’ than I ever remember when I started my career – a long time ago now. It could be that I didn’t notice them back then or that my memory is now more selective. However, a quick Google search and the ‘Awareness Days Calendar’ confirms we now have a very crowded scene. There are plenty of other awareness days and weeks in September 2024. This does beg the question ‘Why would JBA want to add to this with our Climate Resilience Week?'.
I like the fact there are so many of these ‘awareness days or weeks’ across a wide variety of subjects. I feel it reflects our society’s diversity of interests and concerns. They reflect where people care and have important messages that can help the wider community.
The value of these events, in my mind, is derived from the focused attention they provide. This works in many ways, both for the organising group and the wider community.
Climate resilience is an urgent, important message
The need for climate resilience is an important message for us at JBA and we believe it's important to wider society. As a business with unique skills in this area, our ambition is to help lead in society’s pursuit of resilience to climate change. Having some focused attention on this is the main reason we are hosting our Climate Resilience Week.
The word ‘resilience’ is increasingly used in everyday language across almost all subjects, and constantly in the media. However, it usually requires some explanation alongside its use. There is a certain elasticity in what it means today. Using it as shorthand without explanation is unhelpful for most discussions, whatever the subject. For us, it has been helpful to have a simple explanation to accompany any discussions on the need for climate resilience.
Aware, Adapt, Respond, Recover
Our simple explanation of improving resilience to climate change has four parts:
- To improve our awareness of the risks
- Adapt so risks are reduced and weather events are less disruptive
- To improve our ability and capacity to respond; and
- To recover from climate change-related events as they occur.
This simple “Aware, Adapt, Respond, Recover” approach is part of the message we want to share and develop during Climate Resilience Week. Click here to watch our animation for more information.
What are the benefits of having an awareness week?
Other benefits of having an ‘awareness week’ are that it provides opportunities to encourage and develop ideas and also to celebrate successes. Over our week we are using our “Aware, Adapt, Respond, Recover” framework to explore how we can enable communities and projects to be more climate resilient. We are also showcasing projects which demonstrate how resilience can be improved. To do this multiple events are planned for our staff and others to join, allowing projects and different perspectives to be explored.
There are many challenges for our communities, habitats and species as our climate changes. It is easy to get dwarfed by its complexities and disheartened by potential impacts. However, through events such as our Climate Resilience Week, these challenges can be explored and potential solutions imagined.
Is a series of activities and events involving everyone at JBA, our clients and partners, professional institutions, industry leaders, students, and communities. Enabling whole of society resilience to climate change isn’t something that we or our clients can achieve in isolation. So, the aim of week is to share and celebrate the collective contributions being made. We want this to serve as a springboard for greater momentum, partnership and inspiration both internally and with our clients.
Click here to join the conversation online.
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Throughout Climate Resilience Week, we'll be posting insights and information from the events, sharing thought-provoking content and providing opportunities for online discussion and reflection on our social channels. Follow the conversation at #JBAClimateResilienceWeek.
