NIBS Partnership To Develop Risk Mitigation Roadmap

The roadmap will help Americans and the nation’s built environment manage risk to mitigate the devastating effects of climate change.

risk mitigation
NPIS Fannie Mae

The National Institute of Building Sciences is working with Fannie Mae to develop a roadmap on mitigation investment to help Americans and the nation’s built environment prepare for and better respond to the devastating effects of climate change.

The Resilience Incentivization Roadmap 2.0 aims to identify pathways to work with lenders to explore financial products that support resilient buildings, help developers properly evaluate risk and recognize values of resilient buildings and lower the upfront cost, collaborate with insurers to promote insurance programs that reward safer structures, and support communities to develop layered mitigation investment packages.

“Banks, insurance companies, appraisers, and real estate firms all play a significant role in how buildings are procured, designed, and constructed,” said Stephen T. Ayers, FAIA, Interim CEO of NIBS. “How these different segments evaluate the risk associated with particular projects, technologies, and practices can have an enormous impact on whether an idea gets the funding and insurance needed to move forward to fruition.”

NIBS
Jiqiu Yuan, the lead on the Mitigation Saves study, stands with Tim Judge.

Additional Insight

The comprehensive benefit-cost study, Natural Hazard Mitigation Saves, shows many pre-disaster mitigation activities save much more than they cost.

For example, hazard mitigation grants made by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Economic Development Administration, and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development save $6 for every $1 spent. Furthermore, adopting the latest in building code requirements saves $11 per $1 invested, and the benefits of building retrofits translate into a $4 savings for every $1 investment.

In 2020, CFIRE published A Roadmap to Resilience Incentivization calling for public and private incentives to owners of buildings and other infrastructure to facilitate the upgrade of existing infrastructure and better design of new infrastructure.

“The ability to estimate and communicate the value of building resiliency is vitally important to U.S. housing, especially given the current and future impact of climate change on the built environment,” said Tim Judge, Chief Climate Officer, Fannie Mae.

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