Resilient communities integrate climate considerations and strategies into every part of their municipality’s daily activities. Understanding strategies for managing climate impacts to municipal assets and levels of service is essential to meaningful climate action.

Discover low-cost and effective strategies and tools to help your municipality build the resilience of services through the assets and programs you already have, while also reducing your carbon footprint.

FCM developed the suite of resources below for municipal staff who play a role in operations and maintenance activities and want to know how to strengthen assets and safeguard municipal services against extreme climate impacts.

First read the handbook and complete the worksheet to identify priorities for your municipality. Next, download and review our six easy-to-understand factsheets, created to help you identify low-carbon climate resilience opportunities by asset type.

Part one: Discover strategies and tools to adapt your existing assets

Cover page for Operations & maintenance for climate resilience: Six strategies for your municipalityORead the Operations & maintenance for climate resilience: Six strategies for your municipality handbook.

The handbook will help you:

  • Build the case for low-carbon resilience in your municipality
  • Identify strategies to build resilience by adapting your existing municipal operations and maintenance activities
  • Prioritize climate change adaptation options that align with your community’s needs
  • Embed equity into your operations and maintenance practices
  • Analyze and manage data with an aim to enhance climate change resilience
  • Discover ways to develop organizational knowledge and skill to support on-going decision-making
  • Apply a climate lens to asset renewal decisions
  • Analyze where to achieve the most value out of your infrastructure investments
  • Recognize opportunities to prioritize green infrastructure

Not sure how to get started? Download this worksheet to identify opportunities in your municipality to apply the strategies described in the handbook.

Part two: Opportunities for action – by asset class

After identifying strategies and tools to identify and prioritizing adaptation options, read our six factsheets. These factsheets provide specific examples of actions you can take to adapt operations and maintenance practices by service area.

Explore each factsheet to discover

  • A common list of municipal assets that belong to each asset class
  • Climate hazards and the physical risk to asset and levels of services
  • Actions your local government can take to better manage risk by adapting to the impacts of climate change or reducing GHG emissions that contribute to climate change

Download the factsheets

 
 
Climate and asset management
Discover ways to integrate climate considerations into your community’s asset management approach.
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Tools: Operations and maintenance for climate resilience

Learn strategies to improve your community’s climate resilience through your existing assets and programs. Check out our handbook, worksheet and factsheets. 

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Learning journey: Climate resilience and asset management

Discover how your community can combine its climate action and asset management approaches, with our learning journey. Watch a video and read our easy-to-understand factsheets and guide. 

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Asset management resource library

Check out our curated collection of guides, case studies, templates and more, all aimed at helping you implement good asset management practices.

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Video series: Climate resilience and asset management

Watch this video series to learn how municipalities across Canada are making climate action a part of their municipal asset management practices and decision-making.

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Integrating Climate Considerations: Community planning

Is your municipality updating or renewing its community plan? Check out this page to learn what climate considerations you should be integrating in your planning activities and learn about what tools you will want to use before you create your plan.

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Integrating Climate Considerations: Service delivery planning

Is your municipality reviewing its service delivery planning? This page can help you discover climate considerations you should be integrating in your service delivery planning activities and learn about what tools you will want to use before you create your plan.

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Integrating Climate Considerations: Governance and operations

Municipal day-to-day operations need to integrate climate change data and considerations. Read this page to learn questions and tools that can help you take climate action in your community.

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The Municipalities for Climate Innovation Program (2017-2022) was a five-year $75-million program, delivered by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and funded by the Government of Canada.

© 2024 Federation of Canadian Municipalities