Uncovering the emerging risks from climate change scenarios and related climate change risk management in the building sector in the UK

Climate Change (CC) is recognised as having a significant impact on human decisions, subsequently affecting human-made networks and social systems. Accordingly, gaining insight into how and when CC-related data is established, distributed and utilised is essential in terms of the design of policies, approaches and systems governing everyday life. Uncovering the impacts and risks associated with CC on building sector assets has been highlighted in other research studies as an area necessitating further work. With this in mind, this study is directed towards considering the risks known to emerge from CC scenarios on UK buildings and real estate, and how buildings may be affected by CC. This study adopted a critical literature review with the goal of establishing the risks seen to emerge from CC. The study has adopted an online survey in order to explore the opinions and views of professionals and practitioners across several organisations, sectors and institutions in the UK in relation to the risks emerging from CCS. In addition, the research assessed the most likely risks emerging from CCS on buildings and real estate, along with the potential timescale of their emergence, as based on the experience of the respondents of the study. Moreover, the survey was designed empirically to identified—as based on the emerging risks—the possible and practical responses that will form the most effective Climate Change Risk Management (CCRM) strategies and tools to be adopted to cope with these emerging risks and accordingly avoid as much impact as is possible in direct consideration of property. The main findings from this study showed that, identifying and assessing the emerging risks from CC—specifically in terms of their damages, impacts and emergence timeframe—are crucial for all stages of the lifecycle of buildings and real estate. In this study, 112 risk factors have been identified and were grouped into seven main clusters; from which the operational emerging risks were the most important risks cluster. On the whole, this study provides a first attempt to uncover the potential emerging risks from CCS on the building sector from different perspectives, using conceptual study and simulation in relation to previous researches, and therefore helps to extend the understanding of the possible risks and impacts emerging from CC. In addition, this study builds knowledge in the building sector by providing the potential emerging risks that need to be integrated within a building’s lifecycle in a systematic manner for mitigating the impact of climate change