Climate Change Risks and Vulnerabilities Report
Order Description
Remember that the task is to produce a ‘consultant style’ report which means using your judgement to boil down and synthesise the main problems that climate change poses for your organisation. This requires understanding but cutting through the complexity with justified courage. That is, you need to not only acknowledge that you understand the main complexities but that you can confidently focus the scope of the report by honing in on only what is most significant. This is about practicing the art of categorisation and comparison.
Eg you could do an analysis of this sort: “If I consider my organisation in terms of 3 categories (its functions (A, B and C), spatial footprint (eg Offices, supply chains) and people (eg staff, clients, local community)) and the main climatic impacts of relevance in terms of 4 categories (W, X, Y and Z), then it the intersection of Y impact with function B, or Z impact with supply chains, for the following reasons….. that pose the greatest risk for the organisation”. You could very usefully map out this sort of analysis in a table. When you think about the consequences of X happening for your organisation, remember to consider it’s existing adaptive capacity or vulnerability – that is, its strengths and weaknesses. For example, is it a well-funded, well-regarded, high-tech organisation, or is it a poorly funded, poorly regarded, and with poor internal infrastructure? Have a look at their annual reports, for example, to see what they have been improving in the organisation and what they consider is not working so well at present.
For those of you still not sure how to structure your thinking, use these example subheadings:
Executive Summary
brief statement of the situation and your conclusions
Introduction to report
Organisation X: vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity
overview of organisation (according to, for example, its functions, spatial footprint and people)
Existing vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity (eg according to different elements of the organisation – this should give the reader a sense of what it’s strenghts and weaknesses are)
Implications of projected climate change impacts for Organisation x
Eg using the sort of comparison described in the paragraph above. Consider how exposed and sensitive different aspects of your organisation are to different projected climate change impacts. Put this in a table or figure. Work out where the biggest risks lie and explain why.
Conclusions: Summary of main risks and vulnerabilities of Organisation x in the context of climate change.
To include some of the detail that might underlie your analysis, you can include break-out “Boxes” (eg one on the possible flow-on effects of a heat wave for your organisation, similar to the sort of figures of cascading effects included in the RMIT Climate Risk Assessment (under this week’s reading)).
Finally, remember to do you best to make it look like a real consulting report – consider style – and of course use supporting references. And to look at the supporting documents available in the Assessment Tasks Info folder.