International Building Code Development and Research Organizations Issue Global Building Resilience Guidelines

Global team of code developers and research organizations create free tool to increase resilience of buildings against increasingly frequent and severe weather hazards

Washington, D.C. – The Global Resiliency Dialogue, a collaborative forum comprised of representatives from the International Code Council, the Australian Building Codes Board, the National Research Council of Canada, and the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, has published the Global Building Resilience Guidelines. The guidelines are the culmination of a three-year effort to share knowledge and research outcomes that inform how to best integrate climate science into building codes.

The Global Building Resilience Guidelines are comprised of a series of high-level principles for jurisdictions around the world to consider. This includes how to create or update building regulations to ensure that new buildings will be resilient to hazards such as typhoons and wildfires during their lifetime. Non-technical and non-prescriptive, the guidelines explore which principles resonate most on a local level and how to implement them efficiently and successfully within building regulatory systems.

The Global Resiliency Dialogue was launched in late 2018 to address the challenges of increasing intensity and frequency of natural hazard events over the past decade, along with the higher cost of damage sustained by buildings. These concerns are common to all contributors to the Global Resiliency Dialogue, whose mission is to create resources that can support policymakers, building safety codes and standards writing bodies, the design community, and regulatory officials in jurisdictions around the world.

“We know that resilient buildings can help save lives in the event of a disaster. Increasing the resilience of our buildings also helps to reduce the costs and disruption caused by rebuilding and relocation,” said Code Council Chief Executive Officer Dominic Sims, CBO. “The Code Council’s global building safety mission includes thought leadership and the sharing of our knowledge and solutions, especially through collaborative platforms like the Global Resiliency Dialogue. We are proud to be part of the collaboration that produced the Global Building Resilience Guidelines that will help protect vulnerable populations around the world.”

The guidelines are available as a free download at www.globalresiliency.org.

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About the International Code Council

The International Code Council is the leading global source of model codes and standards and building safety solutions. International Code Council codes, standards and solutions are used to ensure safe, affordable and sustainable communities and buildings worldwide.