The challenge
NSW TAFE needed an assessment of climate related risks to 1600 buildings, and guidance to improve climate maturity and resilience to climate change.
The solution
Utilising our multi-disciplinary team of experts and in-house digital risk platform, we set out strategies and priorities to protect the portfolio.
The Impact
This paves the way for long-term improvements to resilience, facilitating a safe and supportive learning environment for many years to come.
156
campuses assessed for climate change risk
20-year plan
We provided climate risk insight to support the development of an infrastructure plan that will see TAFE NSW through the next two decades
24
Asset types assessed across over 1600 buildings
The challenge
Technical and Further Education New South Wales (TAFE NSW) is a leading provider of vocational courses in Australia, and they operate in a large portfolio of around 1600 buildings across 156 sites.
The 20 Year Infrastructure Strategy (20YIS) is TAFE NSW’s plan for the future of these assets. Addressing climate change and related risks and then strategizing accordingly is a key part of this plan. TAFE NSW needed a comprehensive climate change risk assessment for the entire portfolio to identify threats to the campus infrastructure and how they operate within it, and set out a roadmap for addressing those threats.
The solution
We deployed our innovative digital platform, now known as the Climate Risk Nexus (CRN) to provide the insight TAFE NSW needed for future planning. CRN is a modular, digital platform for accurate risk assessments, providing granular detail and overarching insight. Pulling in large amounts of information about TAFE NSW’s assets, their existing risk frameworks, government sustainability policy and downscaled climate projections, we were able to generate very specific insights into particular risks facing the various sites and buildings in the portfolio.
CRN was partly inspired by the tedious, spreadsheet-heavy nature of other risk assessment tools and processes. In contrast, it uses visual interfaces to keep engagement high for all stakeholders, ensuring complex information will be simpler to access and process for whoever might need to use it in the future. Through an accessible dashboard, it instantly communicates key facts, and it integrates with GIS software and digital design models, connecting dense risk-related information seamlessly with visual representations of the assets. The outputs are therefore much easier to share with other teams – such as designers – because they are already integrated with familiar tools.
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The use of the CRN was in tandem with the work of a truly multidisciplinary team, with GIS specialists undertaking the web development and tailoring the CRN to TAFE NSW’s needs, our Digital Advisory team handling the data, and the sustainability team taking charge of the resulting risk analyses and adaptation action plans. Our deployment of a diverse skillset reflects the importance of building climate risk assessment and adaptation strategies into wider policy. Resilience is not a side note, it has to be woven into everything we do. Engaging people from different teams, and paying stringently close attention to TAFE NSW’s own people, data and processes was key.
The impact
The data-driven insight into climate risk factors Arcadis has generated is highly specific and tailored to TAFE NSW’s unique requirements, both at the level of individual assets and the entire portfolio. The benefit of this is the ability to make a clear resilience roadmap with targeted priorities, that takes account of the complex web of requirements and diverse characteristics of such a large portfolio.
Armed with this information, TAFE NSW is in the best possible position to protect their assets and meet the challenges ahead with an informed strategy – meaning thousands of students will benefit from more durable, safe and supportive learning environments for decades to come.
