Climate Action Pursuit 2021

The need for academic institutions to build community resilience and adapt to extreme weather is now strikingly evident. Ongoing events continuously reinforce this urgency and compel leading communities to proactively plan and act. In response to this ever-increasing need and urgency, the Community Resilience Building (CRB) (www.CommunityResilienceBuilding.org) process was created. The CRB is a unique, “anywhere at any scale”, community-drive process, rich with information, experience, and dialogue to inclusively improve resilience to all natural hazards and climate change. To date over 425 communities across 9 states have benefited from CRB by developing community-generated and tailored resilience action plans. Amongst the communities that have benefited from CRB are academic institutions such as Tufts University, Eastern Connecticut State University, and California State University – Long Beach – via workshops provided through a partnership between Second Nature and The Nature Conservancy. These institutions represent a wide range of diversity from private to public and large too smaller. Due to the flexibility and structure of the CRB process it can be easily integrated into ongoing and initial climate adaptation, sustainability, and equity building efforts and also help institutions achieve their Second Nature Climate Commitment. This interactive session will cover the overall objectives, process, and outcomes of the CRB process along with specific examples from campuses in hopes of creating greater awareness and opportunity of an important and growing need amongst academic institutions across the United States and beyond.