The central theme of the Speaker Series was the need for greater resilience in the United States, especially as we face the impacts of a changing climate. As flooding, severe storms and drought become much more common, communities must have better planning and prevention strategies to mitigate disaster. The work begins at the local level with better building codes, standards, and zoning plans, as well as community-wide or even regional climate adaptation and resilience plans.

“A resilient community is a strong community that can bounce back from challenges,” said Michael Schmitz, Executive Director of ICLEI USA. “It is a prepared community, able to protect it citizens and economic assets from extreme weather. It is energy independent in the face of rising energy costs and uncertainty; and it is economically strong and diverse because it attracts new business by offering a good quality of life.”

To underscore the power of resilient communities and resilient buildings, the Speaker Series also featured the launch of a landmark joint report by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. The report, Green Building and Climate Resilience: Understanding Impacts and Preparing for Changing Conditions, examines how green buildings advance resiliency by helping us incorporating building strategies that better mitigate, plan and prepare for future climatic conditions. It describes potential adaptive strategies available to green building practitioners.

 “The resiliency agenda is an action agenda – a forward-thinking agenda,” said Jason Hartke, Vice President of National Policy at the U.S. Green Building Council and co-founder of the Resiliency Series with ICLEI USA. “With resiliency, we accept our vulnerability, but we refuse to be paralyzed by its veil of uncertainty…At its core, resiliency is about replacing pessimism with optimism; exchanging surprise for readiness; expediency for planning.”