ISO 14090 : 2019, Adaptation to climate change — Principles, requirements and guidelines
The document is the first in a range of ISO standards in this area and aims to help organizations assess climate change impacts and put plans in place for effective adaptation. It helps them identify and manage risks, as well as seize any opportunities that climate change may bring.
It offers a framework that enables organizations to give appropriate consideration to climate change adaptation when designing and implementing policies, strategies, plans and activities.
The scope of the standard is to specify principles, requirements and guidelines for adaptation to climate change. This includes the integration of adaptation within or across organizations, understanding impacts and uncertainties and how these can be used to inform decisions.
The document is applicable to any organization, regardless of size, type and nature, e.g. local, regional, international, business units, conglomerates, industrial sectors, natural resource management units.
The document can support the development of sector-, aspect- or element-specific climate change adaptation standards.
John Dora, Co-Convenor of the working group that developed the standard, said climate change impacts such as unexpected weather and temperature changes can have a significant effect on an organization’s bottom line if they are not prepared for it, causing infrastructure damage or disruption to their business.
Understanding climate impacts is not just for those implementing climate actions. Organizational decisions are made on the basis of risks and opportunities, so understanding resilience is useful across the value chain such as in purchasing, investment and insurance.
ISO 14091:2021, Adaptation to climate change -- Guidelines on vulnerability, impacts and risk assessment
The impacts of climate change are already visible in all parts of the world and affecting ecological and socio-economic systems. There is a growing need for organizations to better understand and to assess their risks and vulnerabilities arising from these impacts.
ISO 14091 Adaptation to climate change — Guidelines on vulnerability, impacts and risk assessment provides guidance for organizations assessing the risks related to the impacts of climate change. It describes how to understand vulnerability and how to develop and implement a sound risk assessment and is applicable for organizations of all types and sizes whether doing so for the first time or conducting advanced risk assessments.
This standard offers a consistent, structured and pragmatic approach to organizations to understand their vulnerabilities and to prevent or mitigate negative consequences caused by climate change, while taking advantage of the opportunities. Conducting a sound risk assessment based on the guidelines presented in ISO 14091 delivers the basis for climate change adaptation planning, implementation and evaluation.
This is the latest standard to be published in the emerging family of standards on adaptation to climate change that sit under the umbrella of ISO 14090, Adaptation to climate change — Principles, requirements and guidelines.
ISO/TS 14092:2020, Adaptation to climate change — Requirements and guidance on adaptation planning for local governments and communities
ISO/TS 14092:2020 specifies requirements and guidance on adaptation planning for local governments and communities.
This document supports local governments and communities in adapting to climate change based on vulnerability, impacts and risk assessments. In working with relevant interested parties, it also supports the setting of priorities, and the development and subsequent updating of an adaptation plan.
ISO 14093:2022, Mechanism for financing local adaptation to climate change — Performance-based climate resilience grants — Requirements and guidelines
ISO 14093:2022 establishes an approach and methodology for a country-based mechanism to channel climate finance to subnational authorities to support climate change adaptation and to increase local resilience thereby contributing to the achievement of the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The country-based mechanism uses performance-based climate resilience grants (PBCRGs) which ensure programming and verification of climate change expenditures at the local level, offering strong incentives for performance improvements in enhanced resilience.