Are you looking for a clear starting point for your municipal climate adaptation planning? The Climate-Ready Communities (CRC) Assessment Tool helps municipalities evaluate local climate risks and plan targeted, equitable actions.

Watch our webinar on putting the resource to work in your climate planning. You’ll also hear how the City of Fredericton used climate information to guide their adaptation process.

To support your learning, explore our related tip sheets: Tips for climate risk assessments and adaptation planning.

This webinar was designed for municipal staff and elected officials starting or advancing their climate adaptation planning journey. Whether you’re developing your first climate risk assessment or refining an existing approach, you’ll come away with tools and fresh inspiration to move forward.

Speaker:

• Sean Lee, Assistant Director, Engineering & Operations, City of Fredericton

The webinar was delivered in English with French simultaneous interpretation (SI).  

FCM’s Local Leadership for Climate Adaptation initiative is delivered through our Green Municipal Fund and funded by the Government of Canada. 

Through assessing and planning for the climate risks your community faces, you lay the groundwork for:

• defining a vision of what a resilient community means to your community
• building relationships with people who bring important perspectives, skills and knowledges
• identifying which climate risks matter most to your community
• deciding which actions will address these risks and how they should be prioritized
• clarifying who is responsible for what

While significant, more than assessing and planning is required for climate change adaptation. Community climate resilience is strengthened when plans are put into action through municipal operations.  

These tip sheets provide practical guidance to help municipalities take their first steps toward putting their climate adaptation plan into action. Use them to start implementing, integrating and monitoring your progress over time. 
 

Explore tips for implementing climate adaptation plans.

Discover how to get started in the tip sheets below.

Tip sheet: Start putting your climate adaptation plan into action

Time investment: 7 minutes

Get started on implementing your climate adaptation plan. Explore this tip sheet for guidance on how to maintain momentum without depleting resources.

Tip sheet: Start weaving climate adaptation into your municipality’s everyday activities

Time investment: 8 minutes

Make climate adaptation a core part of your municipality’s operations to ensure lasting change. Use this tip sheet to start aligning climate adaptation actions with your municipal plans, processes and systems.

Tip sheet: Start tracking and evaluating your climate adaptation efforts

Time investment: 6 minutes

Keep your climate adaptation plan on track. Use this tip sheet to start tracking progress and make improvements as you go.

This tip sheet will help you answer:

• How do we connect the climate adaptation work we have done to our day-to-day systems, processes and plans?  
• How can we navigate the operational and cultural changes that can come with starting climate adaptation work? 

Getting started 

Review the plans and processes you already have, and identify entry points for your climate adaptation plan.

You do not have to start from scratch. Before creating anything new, identify where actions in your climate adaptation plan can naturally fit into the work your municipality is already doing. This approach helps reduce duplication and the amount of resources required to make progress on climate adaptation.

How can we start integrating our climate adaptation plan into our day-to-day operations without adding extra burden on staff or resources?

To help you get started, here are some examples of how adaptation actions can be connected to existing municipal plans, systems and processes.

Asset management plans

• Consider how climate risks like flooding or heat stress may affect critical infrastructure over time.
• Use climate risk information (e.g., increased freeze-thaw cycles, heavy rainfall, drought) to adjust lifecycle costing, maintenance schedules and infrastructure renewal priorities.
• Identify assets most vulnerable to climate impacts, and include projects to mitigate climate impacts in capital plans (e.g., relocate electrical controls of a pump station in a flood-prone area, retrofit buildings with improved insulation and heat pumps for efficient cooling).

Financial planning and budgeting

• Include adaptation actions in your long-term financial plan and capital budget forecasts. 

Explore FCM’s Long-term financial planning for sustainable service delivery for ways to embed climate resilience into long-term financial planning.

• Factor in the cost of inaction when assessing the value of adaptation measures (e.g., compare the cost of regular maintenance to prevent road washouts with the cost of emergency repairs). 

Explore ICLEI’s Cost of Doing Nothing: A toolbox for building a local business case for adaptation to get additional information on understanding the cost of inaction.

• Ensure your procurement rules don’t prevent you from paying more now to save money later.
• Consider applying for adaptation-related grants and funding opportunities. 

Explore FCM’s Funding opportunities page for a list of the Green Municipal Fund’s (GMF)’s funding programs.

Public works and operations

• Adjust staff’s operational schedules based on projected climate impacts (e.g., increase in the frequency of storm-drain clearing before heavy rain seasons).
• Use seasonal outlooks or weather-trend data to inform planning for snow removal, tree maintenance and water conservation efforts.
• Incorporate heat-, drought- and flood-resilient design into operations and infrastructure upgrades (e.g., planning for tree watering, upsizing culverts to future rainfall conditions). 

Explore GMF’s Tools: Operations and maintenance for climate resilience for ways to help your municipality maintain services in a changing climate.

Emergency planning

• Integrate understanding of current and future climate risks (e.g., wildfire, extreme heat or flooding) into your emergency management plan.
• Coordinate with public health and social services to ensure emergency plans account for vulnerable populations (e.g., cooling centres for seniors).

Public communications and engagement

• Include climate risk information in seasonal public communications (e.g., safety tips for wildfire season, reminders to prepare for extreme heat, suggestions to conserve water during drought periods).
• Use climate adaptation progress updates to build transparency and public trust.
• Share stories of local successes to show residents how climate resilience is being built in their community (e.g., videos, infographics, newsletter spotlights). 

Read Tip sheet: Start putting your climate adaptation plan into action for more information on climate adaptation storytelling.

Land use planning

• Use climate risk information to identify areas that are not suitable for new development due to climate hazards like flooding, wildfire or coastal erosion.
• Update zoning bylaws and land development policies to avoid growth and development in high-risk areas (e.g., wildland-urban interface, coastline) and to preserve natural spaces that can help mitigate the impacts of climate changes (e.g., urban forests that offer relief from extreme heat).

Empower staff to act on climate adaptation through their existing responsibilities.

Integrating climate adaptation plans across an organization is not only a technical task, it can also require a change in corporate culture, including evolving how decisions are made and how services are delivered. These changes can feel big, and it can be hard to maintain momentum as change occurs. Creating change is easier when staff are empowered with an understanding of why climate adaptation matters, how it matters to their role and what they can do to help integrate climate adaptation actions.

How can we build internal capacity and support staff through the change required to integrate our climate adaptation plan into our operations?

Here are some tips to help you get started.

Build an understanding of why climate adaptation matters.

Help staff connect climate risks to the services and assets they manage. For example, encourage staff to reflect on role-relevant questions.

For planners:

• How might increased flood risk affect our development decisions or land use planning?

• Are there areas in our community that might become less suitable for development if wildfires become more common?

• Who in our community may not have access to the financial resources or networks to recover from the impacts of a climate hazard?

For public works and operations staff:

• How would more extreme heat days affect our outdoor work or road maintenance schedules?

• How might increased freeze-thaw cycles impact road surfaces or sidewalks we maintain?

• What would heavier rainfall mean for the way we inspect storm drains or culverts?

• How could more frequent power outages or heat waves affect public building safety and comfort?

• Are the trees we are planting today likely to thrive 20 years from now?

For emergency services or emergency planning staff:

• Are our current emergency plans designed for climate hazards that may become more frequent such as extreme heat, wildfires, flooding or drought?

• What impact do extreme weather events have on volunteer fire departments or local shelters?

For communications staff:

• What forms of communication would our internal and external communities find valuable for staying informed about the work we’re doing to make infrastructure and services more resilient to changing climate conditions?

• How might our communication channels need to evolve to reach people during emergencies such as wildfires or flooding?

Some of this work may have been done already as part of your climate risk assessment and adaptation planning. Explore Tips for building the foundation for municipal climate adaptation for more guidance on how to support staff to build this understanding.

Connect your climate adaptation plan to staff roles.

Once staff are equipped to understand the importance of climate adaptation, work with them to identify ways they can integrate climate adaptation actions into their roles. For example:  

For administrators:

• Embed climate risk and resilience into relevant council reports.

• Engage neighbouring jurisdictions in discussions about climate risk and resilience, identifying shared interests and potential opportunities for collaboration.

For finance staff:

• Include climate risk and adaptation costs in long-term capital planning and asset management.

• Train finance staff to identify funding opportunities that support resilience.

• Review procurement processes and policy to identify opportunities to incorporate climate resilience, such as identifying project types that should include climate resilience requirements in submissions.

For public works and operations staff:  

• Make adjustments to maintenance schedules, emergency response procedures and inspection routines based on observed and projected climate impacts (e.g., checking storm drains more frequently during high-risk seasons).

• Plan outdoor programs with extreme heat in mind.

For communications staff:

• Build climate messaging into regular communications to residents.

• Develop an emergency communications plan.

• Create communication checklists and templates for communicating in extreme weather events.

For planners:

• Use climate risk information to shape land use decisions, zoning bylaws and official community plans. Assess whether proposed developments are climate-resilient and located in safe, low-risk areas.

For engineers:

• Integrate climate projections (e.g., rainfall intensity, temperature extremes) into infrastructure design and lifecycle assessments.

• Review your bylaws, design standards and contract templates to identify where you can integrate climate projections or known climate risks. Update these as necessary. 

Browsing the following resources may help staff brainstorm connections between climate adaptation actions and their roles:

• GMF’s Talking it through: Guide for local government staff on climate adaptation
• GMF’s Guide: Municipal climate change staff
• Climate Caucus’s Resources
• Project Drawdown’s Climate Solutions at Work  

Encourage staff to identify opportunities

Staff often know where there is room to improve processes or make smarter decisions. Create opportunities for staff to suggest how and where climate adaptation could be integrated into their work. This can be done through, for example:

• one-on-one conversations that occur once a year with different staff
• a standing meeting or working group with staff representatives from different departments to share ideas and track progress
• hosting short “climate huddles” or lunch-and-learns to share ideas 

Next steps

Integrating your climate adaptation plan into your municipality’s systems, processes and plans is a core part of successful implementation. For more guidance on implementing your climate adaptation plan, read Tip sheet: Start putting your climate adaptation plan into action. Your integration approach should also consider how you will monitor, report on and learn from your efforts. Tip sheet: Start tracking and evaluating your climate adaptation efforts offers tips for getting started.

Explore the Climate-Ready Communities Assessment Tool for additional insight and support in implementing your climate risk assessment and adaptation plan. You can use the tool to evaluate your existing climate adaptation efforts, pinpoint areas for improvement and chart a clear plan for strengthening your community’s adaptation efforts.  

This tip sheet will help you answer:  

• How can we connect with equity-deserving groups on climate adaptation work?  
• How can we raise awareness and educate others if we have limited resources?

Getting started

Identify equity-deserving groups in your community. 

Identifying equity-deserving groups in your community means considering who lives there, what their identities are and what their lived experiences may be.

How can you identify equity-deserving groups in your community?

Here are some tips to help you get started.

1. Consider who lives in your community.

Equity-deserving groups are people who, because of systemic discrimination, face barriers that prevent them from having the same access to the resources and opportunities available to other members of society, and that are necessary for them if they are to attain just outcomes. These communities are often underrepresented in decision-making processes. In your community, this may include:

• Indigenous Peoples: First Nations, Métis and Inuit people and communities, including urban Indigenous communities  
• newcomers to Canada: a self-identified group that may include people who have obtained landed immigrant status, refugee status or permanent resident status up to five years prior to a given census year  
• people who are part of LGBTQ2+ communities: people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, queer, Two-Spirit and others who represent the wide spectrum of gender identities, sexual orientations and romantic orientations not explicitly named  
• people living with disabilities: people who have a long-term or recurring physical, mental, psychiatric, intellectual or sensory impairment that, in interaction with various attitudinal and environmental barriers, hinders their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others. This is a self-identified status and does not require an external or formal recognition of disability.  
• people with low income: individuals or households earning significantly less than the median income level in their area, placing them at an economic disadvantage compared to the general population. People with low income often face barriers to accessing essential services like healthcare, education and housing, which can perpetuate cycles of poverty and social exclusion.  
• racialized persons: a person or group of people categorized according to ethnic or racial characteristics and subjected to discrimination on that basis
• religious minority groups: a group of people who share religious characteristics differing from those of the majority or dominant population, and who often experience discrimination or exclusion  
• rural and remote residents: individuals living in areas characterized as rural. As an equity-deserving group, these residents may face challenges such as reduced access to critical services and economic opportunities compared to their urban counterparts.  
• women: all people who identify as women

In addition to reflecting on what you already know about your community, other ways of identifying equity-deserving groups include:

• using data such as income, disability, race and ethnicity, language, gender and age
• connecting with other public service providers such as public health, housing and library services
• researching and connecting with different community groups through targeted outreach or events
• reviewing past community engagement initiatives to identify who was or was not involved

Involve equity-deserving groups. 

Asking for participation from equity-deserving groups can be challenging if they face, or have experienced the impacts of, discrimination. In addition, no equity-deserving group or individual within an equity-deserving group is the same. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to involving them in climate adaptation.  

How can you involve equity-deserving groups in climate adaptation work in ways that are considerate and inclusive of their needs?  

Here are some tips to help you get started.

1. Understand the lived experiences of equity-deserving groups.

Many equity-deserving groups experience burdens that create barriers to their involvement in climate adaptation work. Before seeking to involve equity-deserving groups, it is important to take the time to understand their experiences within both the broader community and with your organization, and how that experience may impact their motivation or ability to engage. For example:

• Some groups may be distrustful due to past or current harms.
• Some groups may be struggling to meet their basic needs and therefore may not have the capacity to participate.
• Some groups may have been excluded and overlooked in decision making and thus not want to participate.  

2. Clarify the level of participation you are looking for.

Being clear on what type of involvement you are looking for helps maintain transparency and set clear expectations. In doing so, you can help members of equity-deserving groups or organizations who represent them understand their role and the impact of their contributions. 

Tip: The IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation can help you identify the level of participation you are looking for.

3. Evaluate your organization’s capacity to engage equity-deserving groups.  

Not every organization can do everything, and it's better to do less but do it well than it is to over-commit and not be able to achieve your goals. Because of that, doing an honest assessment of the resources and capabilities of your organization is an important step to take before seeking to involve equity-deserving groups. Here are some examples of steps you can take:

• Review your current staff resources.  
• Consider what skills and training are needed for engagement with equity-deserving groups.  
• Assess the available budget for engagement activities. For example, can your organization provide an honorarium to Indigenous individuals?
• Be transparent about your limitations with community partners.  

4. Work with local organizations.

In some cases, equity-deserving groups may be represented by local non-profits, advocacy groups and community organizations. Reaching out to those organizations can help alleviate some of the demands placed on equity-deserving groups. These organizations often have deep community connections and understand local needs. Here are some examples of good first steps:

• Identify organizations that work with or represent different community groups.
• Schedule initial meetings to discuss your climate adaptation goals.
• Understand barriers to participation (timing, location, language, childcare needs).
• Ask how they typically engage with their communities.
• Attend community events to learn and build relationships with different members of the community.

5. Find out what works for them.  

Every equity-deserving group is different, and assumptions about engagement can lead to ineffective approaches and, in some cases, can risk causing further harm. Instead, directly asking members of equity-deserving groups or organizations that represent them about their preferences for participation will help you come up with engagement approaches that are respectful and accessible. Examples of respectful and accessible engagement approaches may include:

• Go to where people are, rather than asking people to participate in stand-alone engagement events. Work with partners to incorporate engagement into other community events or gatherings.
• Provide multiple opportunities for engagement (in-person and virtual, different times of day) and have childcare available.  
• Compensate participants for their time through an appropriate honorarium or gift card to a local business. 

Explore GMF’s Factsheet: Applying an Indigenous inclusion lens to climate adaptation to learn about integrating an Indigenous lens and Indigenous knowledge into your climate work.  

Read Beyond Inclusion: Equity in Public Engagement from Simon Fraser University’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue for additional support  in engaging the public.  

6. Check in and report back.  

Involving equity-deserving groups in climate adaptation work should be an ongoing process, not a one-time event. Regular communication helps build a trusting relationship and creates opportunities to learn and improve. For example, you could create structures for:  

• scheduling meetings with community organizations
• receiving feedback (e.g., an anonymous survey)
• reporting back on how community input has been used
• celebrating progress and shared achievements 

Next steps

Involving equity-deserving groups is an important part of building the core of your climate adaptation efforts—people, partnerships and governance. For more support to get started on strengthening people, partnerships and governance, explore the following tip sheets:

• Tip sheet: Start resourcing your municipality for climate adaptation
• Tip sheet: Start collaborating on municipal climate adaptation
• Tip sheet: Start building council momentum for climate adaptation

Explore the Climate-Ready Communities Assessment Tool for additional insight and support. You can use the tool to evaluate your existing climate adaptation efforts, pinpoint areas for improvement and chart a clear plan for strengthening your community’s adaptation efforts

Monitoring, reporting and learning do not need to be complicated or costly. This tip sheet aims to offer practical guidance on how to get started on building a system that is manageable and meaningful for your community. It answers:

• How can we build a practical system for tracking adaptation progress?
• How do we make sure our monitoring and reporting efforts support continuous improvement? 

Getting started 

Tracking progress on your climate adaptation plan can help you understand what is working, where changes are needed and how much your efforts are reducing local climate risks over time. It also strengthens transparency and accountability by showing council, staff, partners and community members that your plan is being acted on.  

How do we track progress and learn along the way so our climate adaptation efforts stay effective over time?

Here are some tips to help you get started. 

Consider your audiences. 

Audiences for your climate adaptation efforts may include staff, council, members of the public, stakeholders, Indigenous communities or individuals and equity-deserving groups. Each of these audiences may need or want different types of information about progress on your plan. Thinking about your audiences’ information needs and interests early can help you focus your communications efforts to make sure monitoring and reporting is useful and accessible. For example:

Indigenous community members and equity-deserving groups are part of all the audience categories listed above. While many of the information needs listed in the follow examples may apply, no audience is the same—each may have distinct priorities, knowledge systems or protocols that shape what information they need and how it should be communicated.  

ICLEI’s Climate Communications Playbook: Behavioural Strategies for Community Action provides detailed guidance on how to better understand your audiences, their characteristics and the unique considerations that should inform communications.

Council

Potential information needs:

• high-level summaries

• alignment of climate adaptation actions with municipal priorities

• financial costs, benefits of adaptation actions and risks of inaction

To meet their needs, you could:

• Develop brief updates that can be shared in council reports or budget planning sessions.

• Include high-level summaries with key metrics and financial impacts.

Community members

Potential information needs:

• tangible and relatable information

• explicit connections to daily life or familiar places

To meet their needs, you could:

• Use storytelling, infographics, social media, community newsletters, Facebook groups.

Stakeholders and partners

Potential information needs:

• technical updates

• project-specific progress reports

• updates on collaboration opportunities

To meet their needs, you could:

• Present updates at regular meetings.

• Share formal reports and data summaries.

Municipal staff

Potential information needs:

• role-specific updates

• clear direction on what work needs to be done or on changes to existing work

To meet their needs, you could:

• Use internal dashboards.

• Provide all-staff updates through newsletters.

• Organize department meetings to share lessons-learned. 

Understand what you are looking for and how you will measure it. 

It is not realistic to track everything—nor is it needed. Focusing on a few key metrics that matter most to your community can help make sure your monitoring and reporting efforts are directed. Priority metrics should be:

• aligned with your climate adaptation goals (as outlined in your climate adaptation plan)
• feasible to collect information about given the resources (human and financial) available
• useful for your audiences and for decision making  

In general, it is helpful to monitor and report on two types of information: progress made implementing your climate adaptation plan (i.e., actions you’ve taken) and reduction of local climate risk (i.e., the impact your actions have had).

Progress on implementing your plan

This is about answering: are we doing what we said we would? What lessons have we learned along the way?

Here are some examples that can help you answer those questions:

Metrics

• number of climate adaptation actions completed, in progress or delayed
• percent of budget allocated to climate adaptation projects
• staff time spent on climate adaptation-related tasks

Monitoring tools

• a spreadsheet that mirrors your adaptation actions table in your climate adaptation plan
• project management tools your municipality already uses
• checklists or short progress forms filled by staff or department leads
• simple visual dashboards

Monitoring frequency

Depending on your context and capacity, you might choose:

• ongoing/regular monitoring built into staff role descriptions
• monthly check-ins (e.g., as part of existing team meetings)
• quarterly reviews (e.g., on the same timeline as budget updates or council reporting cycles)
• seasonal updates (e.g., after wildfire season or before summer)
• after key milestones (e.g., upon completion of a specific adaptation action)

Reporting frequency

Depending on the audience or type of information you are sharing, you might choose:

• quarterly updates to staff or working groups
• biannual reports to council and/or community members
• annual progress summaries through a “climate action year-in-review” newsletter
• as needed for funding reports or grant-related deliverables
• every 2-5 years as part of a review of your climate adaptation plan

Reduction of local climate risk

This is about answering: are our climate adaptation efforts having the intended or desired impacts? Might we need to change our approach?

This can be hard to measure directly, especially in the short term. How you answer this question will depend on how you assessed risks in the first place. However, answering these questions does not always require technical data, and useful signals can come from a range of sources. For example, you can gain insights into progress made on reducing climate risks from:

• conversations with staff or community members (e.g., “Compared to last year, there have been fewer road closures this year due to flooding.”)
• community climate surveys (e.g., surveys indicating the level of confidence community members have in the adequacy of wildfire responses)
• interviews or feedback from key partners (e.g., nurses and doctors at the local health-care centre providing information on heat-related health concerns)
• staff reports (e.g., data on the frequency or severity of service disruption) 

Empower staff for climate adaptation monitoring and reviewing. 

Assign clear roles and responsibilities.

Monitoring and reporting are more likely to succeed when roles and responsibilities are clearly assigned. To do this, clarify who is already responsible for or should be responsible for:

• collecting and analyzing the information
• summarizing and sharing the information

Build staff capacity.

You don’t need to be a climate expert to start monitoring adaptation progress. Tools, training and other supports can go a long way. For example:

Tools

• simple templates or checklists
• shared spreadsheets that link actions from our climate adaptation plan to responsible staff or departments
• reporting templates with prompts for lessons-learned

Training

• webinars or in-house sessions on what monitoring can look like
• peer-to-peer learning (e.g., staff showing other staff how they track information in their roles)
• collaboration with neighbouring municipalities for information sharing

Other supports

• partnerships with local universities or not-for-profits
• funding or grants for technical support
• summer or co-op student roles to set up systems
• qualified professionals 

Learn and adapt as you go. 

Monitoring is not just about tracking and reporting. It is also about learning. Building regular reflections into your municipality’s operations can help make sure you’re getting the most out of your monitoring efforts. Here are some examples of what you can do:

• Establish an annual reflection session with staff from different departments.
• Conduct debriefs at the end of climate adaptation projects.
• Develop a “learning log” where staff can record what worked or did not.
• Use monitoring insights to inform updates to your climate adaptation plan or priorities.

Examples of reflection questions that can help initiate conversation, build collective knowledge and support improvements over time include:

• What actions have had the most impact?
• What has been challenging? Why has it been challenging?
• Where has the outcome been different than what we expected?
• What instances have required us to adjust our plans or timelines?
• What lessons have we learned, and who could we share them with?
• What successes are we proud of, and who could we share them with? 

Next steps

Explore the Climate-Ready Communities Assessment Tool for additional insight and support in implementing your climate risk assessment and adaptation plan. You can use the tool to evaluate your existing climate adaptation efforts, pinpoint areas for improvement and chart a clear plan for strengthening your community’s adaptation efforts. 

For 25 years, FCM’s Green Municipal Fund (GMF) has helped local governments deliver projects that are both economically and environmentally sustainable, proving that investing in sustainability delivers real value for Canadians, helps communities thrive and strengthens Canada as a whole.  

Thanks to our longstanding partnership with the Government of Canada, we continue to deliver concrete results in communities nationwide. With $311 million in approved funding—a 400% increase since 2018—demand is higher than ever, proving the case for strong local need. This year, GMF met that need by delivering critical, high-impact funding with unprecedented speed — mobilizing two large climate adaptation initiatives in just 9-months.  

GMF’s 2024–25 Annual Report showcases the many ways GMF is helping build more sustainable communities and a stronger Canada. 

Explore GMF’s 2024-25 Annual Report

• not enough staff with time or expertise to carry out the plan
• insufficient budget for implementation
• competing priorities postpone implementation
• lack of support from leadership for adaptation action
• siloed municipal departments preventing necessary collaboration
• unclear roles and responsibilities, resulting in adaptation falling through the cracks
• lack of explicit alignment with other municipal plans, policies and processes

This tip sheet will help you answer:

• How can our municipality stay committed to climate adaptation over time amidst changing and competing priorities?
• How can our municipality keep people engaged and supportive if climate adaptation results are slow to materialize?
• What processes can help us effectively implement multiple climate adaptation initiatives? 

Getting started 

Maintain momentum you started in your climate risk assessment and adaptation plan. 

Continuing the energy, engagement and enthusiasm generated when creating your climate adaptation plan is essential to making sure your efforts do not lose steam.

How can we turn our climate adaptation plan into meaningful and manageable action?

Here are some tips to help you get started.

Reconvene those involved in the climate risk assessment and adaptation planning process.

The understanding, commitment and energy built during the development of your climate adaptation plan are valuable and important to carry forward even once the plan is completed. Build momentum in implementation by inviting those who participated in the climate risk assessment and adaptation planning to continue participating in a lighter, recurring format. This can be done through, for example:

• scheduling quarterly check-ins or seasonal meetings
• sharing new opportunities or funding programs for climate adaptation
• sharing opportunities for integrating climate adaptation into other projects, systems and processes

Aim for progress, not perfection.

Start by identifying actions from your plan that you can implement right away—even if they are small. These early or “quick” wins help build confidence and demonstrate that the plan is more than just a document.

Examples of actions that may have lower barriers include:

• building on existing work (e.g., integrating climate adaptation into a project that is still in the planning or early stages)
• making small changes to your asset operations, for example, doing visual culvert inspections before storms
• planting shade trees in parks and public spaces
• identifying a public facility that can serve as a cooling centre and creating an operations plan to ensure you’re ready for extreme heat events

Establish enthusiasm and accountability.

Acknowledge and celebrate any climate adaptation actions taken, even if they are small. This keeps people motivated and accountable, which can help make sure that implementation doesn’t fall through the cracks over time. Establishing accountability might look like:

• regularly sharing updates with stakeholders, community members and others involved in the plan
• in council meetings or newsletters, acknowledging staff, partners and community members who are helping drive climate adaptation actions
• providing regular updates in project dashboards or reports

Communicate often.

Ongoing communication can help identify and address potential challenges early and keep those implementing your climate adaptation plan aligned. Regular communication can also help maintain motivation when it creates opportunities to celebrate the progress made. Ongoing communication in your municipality could look like:

• quarterly check-ins with project teams
• internal newsletters or updates to council
• public updates via community bulletins or social media

Share successes and lessons-learned.

Identify and tell local and regional success stories to show that actions can make a difference and provide examples of implementation. Sharing success stories within your organization and learning from others can inspire and motivate your team and others involved, showing that effective climate adaptation is achievable and beneficial. It can also help develop a shared purpose.

Importantly, telling stories about what is working and what is not helps normalize the idea that climate adaptation is a learning process. This type of storytelling could look like:

• hosting a lunch-and-learn to share progress made on one of your climate adaptation plan actions
• publishing a short article or reflection in your municipal newsletter about the impact of a climate adaptation action
• sharing challenges with colleagues and brainstorming ideas on what to try next  

Tip: The Green Municipal Fund’s Guide: Municipal Climate Change Staff offers suggestions on ways to show progress, celebrate success and track contributions.

Share the responsibility of implementation within your organization. 

Implementing your climate adaptation plan will work better if many people share the responsibility. When different departments and staff members are involved, more people will support the plan, more will learn how to do the work and the implementation can continue even when staff changes happen. Building climate resilience should feel like a shared priority.

How can we ensure implementation continues even if staff changes or priorities shift?

Here are some tips to help you get started.

Build understanding of why climate adaptation matters.

When people within your organization see how climate risks affect their day-to-day responsibilities, they are more likely to support and participate in carrying out the climate adaptation plan.  

Explore Tips for building the foundation for municipal climate adaptation for more support on how to help staff and council build this understanding.

The process of building understanding can begin with current staff. Then, as new staff are hired, ask that they review the climate risk assessment, adaptation plan and any other relevant documents as part of the onboarding process. In this way, they will become familiar with your adaptation goals and responsibilities.

Outline roles and responsibilities.

Once people within your organization understand that they have a role in advancing climate adaptation efforts, it can be helpful to develop structures that clarify who is responsible for implementing, supporting and monitoring different actions in the plan. Doing so helps maintain progress even if the person in the role changes. For example:

• Create a table that lists a role or department responsible for each of the actions identified in your climate adaptation plan.
• Include tasks related to climate adaptation in new job descriptions.   

Read Tip sheet: Start preparing for climate risk assessment and adaptation plan for more support on bringing together knowledge, skills and experience in climate adaptation work.

Involve people outside your organization.

The relationships you have with others can bring much-needed capacity, tools and know-how to support your climate adaptation efforts.

How do we bring in the support, capacity and collaboration needed to implement our climate adaptation plan?

Here are some tips to help you get started.

Work with others doing climate adaptation work.

Involving partners early in implementation can also foster long-term support. Collaborating on shared goals can increase impact, reduce duplication and make implementation more manageable. Here are some ways to work with others on implementing your climate adaptation actions:

• partnering with a neighbouring municipality on joint wildfire evacuation training
• working with a neighbouring municipality on shared infrastructure upgrades
• working with a local nonprofit to support engagement and outreach with the community members they represent
• reaching out to regional governments, Indigenous communities or academic institutions for tools and expertise   

For more tips on working with others to advance climate adaptation efforts, read Tip sheet: Start collaborating on municipal climate adaptation.

To learn more about working with equity-deserving groups specifically, explore GMF’s Factsheet: Applying an Indigenous inclusion lens to climate adaptation and Factsheet: Why equity matters in municipal climate adaptation.

Next steps

An important part of implementing your climate adaptation plan is using it to inform how your municipality sets priorities, delivers services and makes decisions. For support in getting started on embedding your climate adaptation plan into your existing systems, processes and plans, read Tip sheet: Start weaving climate adaptation into your municipality’s everyday activities. In addition, your approach to implementing your climate adaptation plan should also consider how you will monitor, report on and learn from your efforts. Tip sheet: Start tracking and evaluating your climate adaptation efforts offers tips for getting started.

Explore the Climate-Ready Communities Assessment Tool for additional insight and support in implementing your climate risk assessment and adaptation plan. You can use the tool to evaluate your existing climate adaptation efforts, pinpoint areas for improvement and chart a clear plan for strengthening your community’s adaptation efforts.  

This tip sheet will help you answer:  

• How do we gain council support for climate adaptation amidst competing priorities?
• How can we draft effective climate adaptation policies with limited staff and funds? 

Getting started

Build council support. 

Having council’s support for climate adaptation means council has acknowledged that climate change will have undesirable impacts on the community and made a commitment to do something about it.  

How do you get council’s support for climate adaptation efforts when they have other priorities or don’t see climate adaptation as one?

Here are some tips to help you get started.

1. Identify council’s level of understanding of climate risks and adaptation.

Determine your council's current understanding of climate risks and appetite for climate adaptation. For example, are they supportive, resistant or overwhelmed? Understanding their perspectives will help you tailor your approach. 

Resources such as Reacclimates Building a Social Mandate for Climate Action—A Playbook for Accelerating Public Engagement and GMF’s Talking it through: Guide for local government staff on climate adaptation may help you identify council’s understanding and perspective.

 

Identify what motivates council members and what barriers they face. For example, do they need external funding to support initiatives? Addressing these factors can help build support.  

2. Build council’s understanding of why climate adaptation matters.

With an understanding of how your council currently views climate adaptation, you can begin to build their understanding in a way that resonates with them. At a high level, this is about helping council understand how climate risks impact community priorities. For example:

Community priority	Examples of associated climate impacts
Public health and safety	Heatwaves can have harmful effects on physical health, particularly for vulnerable populations.
Economic stability	Wildfires, particularly when they are near urban areas, can disrupt local economies by damaging infrastructure.
Infrastructure resilience	Flooding can stress or destroy infrastructure.
Environmental quality	Droughts can harm local ecosystems, leading to loss of biodiversity and degradation of natural assets.
Reliable and affordable service delivery	The cost to maintain levels of service when faced with climate hazards will significantly increase if systems and infrastructure are not proactively built to adapt to the hazards.

 

For many municipalities it can be helpful to also communicate the real financial impact of not adapting to climate change. The Canadian Climate Institute’s report series, The Costs of Climate Change, contain key insights you can use in your communication with council. For example:  

• Damage Control: Reducing the costs of climate impacts in Canada reports that for every $1 spent on adaptation measures today, $13-$15 will be returned in direct and indirect benefits in the coming years. Messaging about the financial benefits of being proactive may be effective for council members who lean toward supporting climate adaptation.
• Under Water: The Costs of Climate Change for Canada’s Infrastructure reports that flood damage to homes and buildings could increase from $60 million to $300 million. Messages showing the cost of inaction may resonate with council members who are still weighing the urgency or value of investing in climate adaptation.  

ICLEI’s Cost of Doing Nothing:  A Toolbox for Building a Local Business Case for Adaptation can help you assess the costs of doing nothing in your municipality’s local context. 

Additional support for building council’s understanding can be found at GMF’s Talking it through: Guide for local government staff on climate adaptation. Check out the discussion guide and the customizable PowerPoint template.  

 

3. Help council understand their role and what they can do.  

Council’s role in climate adaptation is to define desired objectives, set direction through policy and other directives and then to allocate resources for implementation of policy and directives. Staff are responsible for determining the most effective and efficient way to implement council’s direction. Examples of council directives related to climate adaptation include:

• Conduct a climate risk assessment and develop a community climate action plan.
• Enhance and maintain green infrastructure, including natural assets.
• Implement zoning and building codes that improve climate resilience.
• Engage with the public to inform an understanding of impacts and priorities.
• Report on progress and risks annually.
• Assess climate risk for all new capital requests.
• Leverage funding and partnerships.

If you aren’t sure where to start, look at examples from other communities near you to see what has been successful. This can provide inspiration and practical ideas for your council. 

Develop climate adaptation policies. 

Developing effective climate adaptation policies is key to ensuring long-term resilience.

How can we create and implement policies that effectively address the impacts of climate change on our community?

Here are some tips to help you get started.

1. Integrate climate adaptation into existing policies and planning processes.

This approach is about embedding climate adaptation considerations into all aspects of municipal operations. Ideally, you have already done a risk assessment and climate adaptation plan to understand what hazards and impacts you need to adapt to and how to go about making some changes. After that, you are in a good position to review current policies and regulations such as zoning bylaws, building codes and emergency management plans to identify where climate adaptation fits in. For example,

• Zoning regulations can be updated to prevent development in flood-prone areas and encourage the use of green infrastructure.
• Building standards related to heat resilience can be developed for new construction and renovations.
• Emergency preparedness and response plans can be updated to consider anticipated climate changes and their local impacts.  

2. Develop new climate adaptation policies  

If you can’t find ways to integrate climate adaptation into existing policies and programs, creating new ones can help fill gaps. It is a good idea to start this process by setting clear climate adaptation objectives that reflect the context and priorities of your community. Some examples include: 

Policy area	Example of associated objective
Infrastructure	Keep roads, bridges and water systems in good shape to handle extreme weather.
Green spaces	Create more green spaces like parks, gardens and green roofs in urban areas to help manage rainwater and keep the town cooler. Protect important ecosystems, like forests and wetlands, to help them adapt to local climate changes so they can continue to benefit your community.
Involve community	Run programs to help residents understand climate change and what they can do about it. This could be through community events, school activities or simple flyers.
Emergency preparedness	So everyone knows what to do during weather-related emergencies, develop plans for responding to and recovering from extreme events, like floods or heatwaves.

 

Once you have defined objectives for your policy, draft policy statements that provide direction, and outline the required and desired approach to achieving these objectives.  

Explore the Climate Caucus Resources Library for examples of motions, bylaws, council reports and briefing notes for municipal climate initiatives. 

Next steps

Council support and climate adaptation policies are important parts of building the core of your climate adaptation efforts—people, partnerships and governance. For more support to get started on strengthening people, partnerships and governance, explore the following tip sheets:

• Tip sheet: Start resourcing your municipality for climate adaptation
• Tip sheet: Start collaborating on municipal climate adaptation
• Tip sheet: Start involving diverse voices in municipal climate adaptation

Explore the Climate-Ready Communities Assessment Tool for additional insight and support. You can use the tool to evaluate your existing climate adaptation efforts, pinpoint areas for improvement and chart a clear plan for strengthening your community’s adaptation efforts