Create a future-focused process for adapting City operations to climate changes (USAU0005)

Commitment ID

USAU0005

Commitment Title

Create a future-focused process for adapting City operations to climate changes

Problem

Climate change is having variable impacts in different regions, and each regional human, mechanical, and environmental system will experience those impacts in different ways depending on the design and operations. The City of Austin provides a huge range of services and manages a large and varied number of operations that power them. These services must be maintained and even expanded as the climate changes, but creating unique climate adaptation approaches for each would be very costly and miss potential efficiencies between operations. The City’s adaptation approach must be generalizable and scalable. Additionally, because they will occur in the future, climate changes are projected as a range of possibilities. Departments need a way to plan adaptations for a range of climate scenarios. Operations may also change for non-climate related factors such as evolving service requirements, new technologies, etc. Thus, a static, prescriptive plan for adapting operations will not suffice.

Status quo

The City carries out various operations to conduct business and provide services to residents. Many operations are location-based, rather than virtual or digital, and were designed with an accepted set of environmental factors (e.g. outdoor temperatures) in mind for efficiency, health and safety, performance, etc. Even operations based indoors or virtually may be impacted by climate changes due to things like building and equipment performance, commutes, etc. The City understands near-future climate changes but does not have a process to adapt operations accordingly to protect staff health and safety, outcomes, and resources.

Action

The Office of Innovation (OOI) will collaborate with the Office of Sustainability (OOS)to create a process, based on the range of accepted climate change projections, that the City can use to:

• identify potential risks and impacts to departments’ operations based on a range of shared climate scenarios; 
• determine the changes necessary in each scenario to maintain performance, health and safety, resource efficiency, etc.; 
• thresholds and triggers to make those changes; and 
• indicators to monitor performance. 

The process will center on strategic foresight and scenario analysis tools that OOI incorporates as part of its future program. We propose a staged development approach beginning with a single program/operation, expanding to a department or class of operations, and finally scaling to all City operations. Prior to implementation, we will share the process with students from Texas State University who will provide feedback to refine the draft process framework. Insights will be gathered during a workshop involving these students, engaging them in scenario analysis exercises and seeking their perspectives on the process. If successful, this process will allow any City department and/or operation to map their processes in detail, understand how different climate scenarios could affect them, and determine the types of operational changes needed for each scenario and when to make them. This approach can be shared with other organizations around the globe.

How will the commitment contribute to solving the public problem described above?

Once the commitment has been implemented it will allow the City to efficiently and safely maintain or even enhance operations in the future, regardless of actual climate effects. Ultimate indicators of success are determining if, by following this approach, operational service, safety, efficiency, and resource levels are maintained or improved as the climate continues to change. To understand this, we will need to design several indicators and feedback loops into the adaptation process.

What long-term goal as identified in your Open Government Strategy does this commitment relate to?

Our long-term goals include creating an internal infrastructure to build & sustain strategic foresight and anticipatory capacity among senior leaders and policymakers within the City organization. This commitment relates directly to that long-term goal as it will provide the City with a system and structure to utilize foresight in its climate response and daily operations. It will also allow the City to shift its thinking towards models that incorporate anticipatory governance with the collaboration of individual departments and other related stakeholders. We also intend to develop this model and process to be shared with other local, regional, and global partner organizations. This will help us align efforts in our area, and help others tailor adaptation processes for their operations regardless of location.

Primary Policy Area

Crisis Response

Primary Sector

Environment & Climate

What OGP value is this commitment relevant to?