Ramboll and Impact on Urban Health launch Neighbourhood Futures framework

To confront the pressing need to design more climate resilient urban areas, Ramboll and Impact on Urban Health have today announced the launch of Neighbourhood Futures, a new framework designed to embed climate resilience into urban areas.

Adopting and adapting an existing framework set out by Dr Rutger de Graaf-van Dinther and Henk Ovink, the Neighbourhood Futures framework sets out five capacities – Threshold Capacity, Coping Capacity, Recovery Capacity, Adaptive Capacity, and Transformative Capacity – which can be used collectively to examine local conditions, evaluate plans and strategies, and shape new projects.

The framework is intended to support practitioners who are working on climate action and resilience plans, and has been conceived as a cross-disciplinary tool that can be used by varying departments and sectors collaboratively, whether that is housing providers, local authorities, the health system, construction companies, community organisations, or urban planners.

The framework is designed to enable the development of more comprehensive strategies, with each of the capacities focusing on differing vulnerabilities, time-frames, resources, needs, and performance objectives, which reflects the diverse and uneven experience of climate extremes across urban areas.

Commenting on the launch of the framework, Peter Babudu, Executive Director at Impact on Urban Health, said:

“The climate crisis is already turning into a health crisis but as a society we remain under-prepared and, as a result, the need to develop new ways for neighbourhoods to withstand temperature extremes is urgent, particularly because we already know that the health effects of climate change will follow existing patterns of inequality. If we are serious about mitigating the effects of climate change, collaboration across sectors will be crucial because the decisions we make now will continue to impact health outcomes far into the future.”

Philippa Spence, Managing Director Environment & Health at Ramboll, added:

“Now is the time to ensure that neighbourhoods are prepared for climate change. Practitioners will need to think about their work in a new way, whilst structural changes to neighbourhoods and new interventions will be needed. The Neighbourhood Futures framework provides practitioners with a means of knowing what is needed to absorb the shock of climate change and ensure communities are resilient enough to respond to these pressures.”