First Street Foundation and Arup announce strategic partnership to help organizations tackle climate risk across the US

BROOKLYN, N.Y., July 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading climate science and flood modeling nonprofit First Street Foundation and global engineering and consulting firm Arup have announced that they are cocreating products that will provide climate risk data for diverse property types across the United States. The dynamic partnership brings together First Street Foundation's leading datasets in climate-adjusted national hazards with Arup's expertise and experience in risk and resiliency engineering and planning. Together, First Street Foundation and Arup will collaborate to understand the risk of climate change across the built environment, supporting organizations in mitigating risk and promoting the resilience of their properties. The world-class team is developing multiple initiatives and products for climate-related hazards, which will be announced in the near future.   

The First Street Foundation is dedicated to quantifying and communicating America's growing risk as a result of a changing climate. Its First National Flood Risk Assessment, released in June 2020 alongside FloodFactor.com, uses the Foundation's unique national flood model to provide a probabilistic, climate adjusted flood risk score for every American home today, and 30 years into the future. In February 2021, the Foundation released its Cost of Climate national report, which added detail into the economic impact of flood risk to homes and properties throughout the United States. Today, the Foundation's data is leveraged by all levels of government, industry, and everyday citizens. This partnership with Arup allows First Street Foundation to continue its efforts to provide crucial insights to businesses and policy makers about the economic impact of flood related risks, and how to mitigate against them.

Arup guides organizations along their resilience journey, strengthening their capacity to understand risk and build resilience. The company provides end-to-end climate risk and resilience advisory for a diverse range of organizations and projects around the world.  These include university campuses, data center operators, technology companies, manufacturers, real estate developers, healthcare providers, utility and transit operators, and governments. United by a deep understanding of the built environment and sustainable development, Arup's multidisciplinary team is comprised of engineers, planners, and risk and resilience analysts. Today, Arup provides strategic advice of the highest technical caliber to inform decision-making and align resilience investments to manage risk and maximize co-benefits, so organizations and communities can take action with confidence.

"The threat of experiencing severe environmental disaster is accelerating in the United States due to the reality of a changing climate," said Matthew Eby, founder and executive director of the First Street Foundation. "Partnering with Arup allows the First Street Foundation to leverage our data and climate hazard modeling capacities to enable a fuller understanding of the extent and nature of the risks to the built environment." 

"With climate change intensifying the frequency and impacts of natural hazard events like floods, wildfires, and hurricanes, it is increasingly important to prepare organizations and adapt assets for the future," said Ibbi Almufti, leader of the Resilience team in Arup's San Francisco office. "We have honed our climate risk expertise over the past several years by working with some of the largest organizations in the world as we help them navigate their resilience journey. Teaming with First Street Foundation allows us to scale our advisory so that it benefits more people, organizations, and communities."

First Street Foundation is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) research and technology group working to define America's growing flood risk. The Foundation uses transparent, peer-reviewed methodologies to calculate the past, present, and future flood risk of individual homes and properties across the United States. The Foundation's data addresses an asymmetry of information in the U.S., empowering Americans to protect themselves from increasing flood risk. 

Arup is the creative force at the heart of many of the world's most prominent projects in the built environment and across industry. Working in more than 140 countries, the firm's designers, engineers, architects, planners, consultants, and technical specialists work with our clients on innovative projects of the highest quality and impact.

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SOURCE First Street Foundation