Alan Scott, FAIA, LEED Fellow, is a registered architect and sustainability practitioner with over 35 years of experience. He creatively applies his skills as a facilitator, consultant, project director, and teacher in support of high-performance, sustainable and resilient built environment projects in North and South America. His project work focuses on boosting new and existing building performance, decarbonization, occupant wellness and resilience, currently conducting property resilience assessments to identify natural hazard and climate risks and vulnerabilities and guide resilience planning. Alan is a frequent presenter at conferences, workshops and webinars on numerous topics related to sustainable communities, high-performance buildings, indoor environmental quality, and resilience, reaching audiences on three continents. This includes speaking on resilience at GreenBuild 2024, and the CoreNet Global Summit in 2023 and 2024. Alan currently serves as Vice-chair of the USGBC Resilience Working Group, Vice-chair of the AIA Resilience and Disaster Response (RADR) Committee, and as a member of the USGBC LEED Environmental Quality Technical Advisory Group.
SESSIONS
Aligning Resilience Goals in the Built Environment: How Risk Management Processes & Standards Incentivize Resilience
Given the increasing frequency and severity of natural hazards and the dire predictions of climate scientists, it is imperative to redouble efforts to mitigate climate change and adapt to reduce the catastrophic risks of a worsening climate and sea level rise. Likewise, it is important to proactively address natural hazards caused by geological processes, such as earthquakes, not connected to climate change. However, there are always competing priorities within capital and operational budgets for buildings and infrastructure, making it challenging to appropriately allocate funding to mitigate potential future risks. For investors, lenders, insurers, asset owners, and property managers, it is increasingly important to assess climate and natural hazard risks and vulnerabilities, and to prioritize, plan, and implement resilience measures to guard against future losses.This session will introduce the emerging practice of climate and natural hazard risk assessment. We will learn about some of the tools and methods currently being used to assess and mitigate vulnerabilities, while improving the resilience and performance of new and existing buildings. The presenter will explore how the standards and information gathered during commercial real estate (CRE) finance and development can drive resilience investment. This will include an introduction to the new ASTM E3429 Standard Guide for Property Resilience Assessment and its application in CRE transactions, as well as a guide for resilience-focused capital improvement planning. The presenter will also share an overview of new resilience requirements included in frameworks and new voluntary standards such as USGBC’s LEED version 5 rating system.