“Climate shocks and stresses already impact British Columbians and the health system that we rely on in times of duress,” writes Angie Woo of Facilities Management – Energy and Environmental Sustainability (Lower Mainland health organizations).

Local health authorities are working to identify and address climate risks that affect health service delivery. “In capital project planning and design, we bring together health leadership, workforce, public health, emergency response, and consultant teams . . . to explore climate hazard risks and cascading impacts from opening day through to facility end-of-life with scenarios based on climate projections and stress testing,” says Woo.

Woo’s Climate Resilience and Adaptation Program has found resilience principles developed by the Urban Development Institute to be useful in its analysis, discovering opportunities to “. . . explore hazards, assess vulnerability and risk, and co-create low-carbon options with our private sector partners, at the site and off-site levels in particular.”

The work of the Climate Resilience and Adaptation Program uses future climate projections for health care facilities in order to better understand the significant shifts in temperature and precipitation in its health service delivery areas. This information is brought into site master plans to inform redevelopment and renewal plans.

“Community vulnerability to climate hazards, in particular extreme heat and flood,” notes Woo, “is material to building broader health system climate resilience.”

Download Spring 2020

For more on how health authorities are working to manage climate risks in health care facilities, see Woo’s “Moving Toward Climate Resilient Health Facilities in the Lower Mainland” in the Spring 2020 edition of Input. Download Spring 2020

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Vancouver Coastal Health campuses and buildings.
Credit: Facilities Management – Energy and Environmental Sustainability