National foreword

This British Standard is the UK implementation of EN ISO 14091:2021. It is identical to ISO 14091:2021.

The UK participation in its preparation was entrusted to Technical Committee SES/1/7, Greenhouse gas management and related activities.

A list of organizations represented on this committee can be obtained on request to its committee manager.

This publication does not purport to include all the necessary provisions of a contract. Users are responsible for its correct application.

Compliance with a British Standard cannot confer immunity from legal obligations.

This British Standard was published under the authority of the Standards Policy and Strategy Committee on 31 March 2021.

Foreword

ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out through ISO technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical committee has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work. ISO collaborates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of electrotechnical standardization.

The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular, the different approval criteria needed for the different types of ISO documents should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives).

Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights. Details of any patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the Introduction and/or on the ISO list of patent declarations received (see www.iso.org/patents).

Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not constitute an endorsement.

For an explanation of the voluntary nature of standards, the meaning of ISO specific terms and expressions related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO’s adherence to the World Trade Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) see www.iso.org/iso/foreword.html.

This document was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 207, Environmental management, Subcommittee SC 7, Greenhouse gas management and related activities, in collaboration with the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) Technical Committee CEN/SS S26, Environmental management, in accordance with the Agreement on technical cooperation between ISO and CEN (Vienna Agreement).

Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A complete listing of these bodies can be found at www.iso.org/members.html.

Introduction

Climate change is impacting organizations in various ways and it is anticipated that these impacts will continue well into the future. Organizations have an increasing need to understand, mitigate and manage climate change risks. Climate change risk assessment is key in this context. For responses to be delivered at the necessary pace and scale, it is important that risk assessment approaches are systematic and replicable, permitting learning within and between assessments as new knowledge, technology and experience arise. This document provides guidelines on approaches to assess climate change-related risks.

Risk assessments improve planning of adaptation to climate change and inform the implementation and monitoring of climate change adaptation activities. Adaptation is usually more effective when initiated at an early stage of project development, and when undertaken as a planned process rather than in response to experienced impacts. Better knowledge of climate change risks will make it easier and less costly to respond.

Climate change risks differ from other risks. It is often difficult or even impossible to quantify their short- or long-term probability so a conventional risk assessment that uses statistical probabilities can be ineffective. For this reason, various approaches have been developed for assessing climate change risks. This document provides guidance on the use of screening assessments and impact chains. The screening approach can serve as a stand-alone, simplified risk assessment for a straight-forward system at risk or for organizations with a limited budget, or serve as a pre-assessment prior to the use of impact chains. Based on a participatory and inclusive process, impact chain approaches are more comprehensive, providing an opportunity to address all relevant factors. Both screening assessments and impact chain assessments allow for qualitative and quantitative analysis.

This document is relevant to any organization regardless of size, type and nature. For example, it can help financial institutions with decisions in project financing, companies operating in climate-sensitive business sectors or local governments developing adaptation strategies.

This document covers risks that result from a changing climate. It does not address risks that result from the transition to a low carbon economy. This document recognizes that climate risks can be threats or opportunities.

This document emphasizes comprehensive documentation and communication of climate change risks; these are essential for all subsequent activities. Risk assessments, among other purposes, provide information on identifying adaptation actions and prioritizing them. Risk assessments conducted in accordance with this document also strengthen planning activities on disaster risk reduction (DRR).

This document can be applied by organizations that want to carry out climate change risk assessments [in the sense of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)] as well as by organizations that want to carry out vulnerability assessments (in the sense of the IPCC AR4). However, it uses risk assessment as the central term.

This document belongs to an emerging family of standards on adaptation to climate change under the umbrella of ISO 14090, which describes the following elements of climate change adaptation:

pre-planning;
assessing impacts including opportunities;
adaptation planning;
implementation;
monitoring and evaluation;
reporting and communication.

This document is part of the second item on the above list: “assessing impacts including opportunities”. ISO/TS 14092:2020 helps define adaptation planning for local governments and communities. Other International Standards also deal with climate change or are in some way linked to this document. For example, ISO 31000 is an excellent companion because it can help organizations manage the risks that are identified and assessed in this document, which itself is a specialized expansion of the limited risk assessment portion of ISO 31000. ISO 14001 allows for the integration of climate change adaptation into an environmental management system and this document provides additional information to support this.

This document is a guidance document for people working in the field of climate change.

This document is structured starting with an introduction to the concept of climate change risk assessment, followed by the preparation, the implementation and the documentation and communication of the climate change risk assessment.

The guidelines provided in this document are accompanied by supporting examples and information.

In this document, the following verbal forms are used:

“should” indicates a recommendation;
“may” indicates a permission;
“can” indicates a possibility or capability.

This European Standard was approved by CEN on 29 January 2021.

CEN members are bound to comply with the CEN/CENELEC Internal Regulations which stipulate the conditions for giving this European Standard the status of a national standard without any alteration. Up-to-date lists and bibliographical references concerning such national standards may be obtained on application to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre or to any CEN member.

This European Standard exists in three official versions (English, French, German). A version in any other language made by translation under the responsibility of a CEN member into its own language and notified to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre has the same status as the official versions.

CEN members are the national standards bodies of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and United Kingdom.

European foreword

This document (EN ISO 14091:2021) has been prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 207 "Environmental management" in collaboration with Technical Committee CEN/SS S26 “Environmental management” the secretariat of which is held by CCMC.

This European Standard shall be given the status of a national standard, either by publication of an identical text or by endorsement, at the latest by September 2021, and conflicting national standards shall be withdrawn at the latest by September 2021.

Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. CEN shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

According to the CEN-CENELEC Internal Regulations, the national standards organizations of the following countries are bound to implement this European Standard: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

Endorsement notice

The text of ISO 14091:2021 has been approved by CEN as EN ISO 14091:2021 without any modification.

1 Scope

This document gives guidelines for assessing the risks related to the potential impacts of climate change. It describes how to understand vulnerability and how to develop and implement a sound risk assessment in the context of climate change. It can be used for assessing both present and future climate change risks.

Risk assessment according to this document provides a basis for climate change adaptation planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation for any organization, regardless of size, type and nature.

2 Normative references

3 Terms and definitions

4 Introduction to climate change risk assessment

4.1 Concept of climate change risk

Climate change risk describes the potential impact of climate change on societies, economies and the environment.

NOTE 1 This document focuses on the risks induced by the impacts of climate change and not risks from climate change mitigation policies, e.g. transitional risks.

NOTE 2 The impacts of climate change can arise from gradual changes in climate conditions as well as an increase in extreme weather events.

The main components for a risk assessment are (illustrated in Figure A.1):

the hazard;
the exposure of a given system to the hazard;
the sensitivity of the system to the hazard;
the (potential) climate change impact, i.e. risk without adaptation;
the risk with adaptation (in the future).

Future potential climate change impacts can be modified by the adaptive capacity of a system.

EXAMPLE A system can be a region, a community, a household, a supply chain, an economic sector, a business, a population group, an ecosystem, infrastructure and its components.

Climate change impacts occur because a system is exposed to hazards (e.g. drought, flooding, heat stress). The sensitivity of the system (e.g. types of crops, land-use, age of the population) will determine the extent to which these hazards affect it. Impact is a function of both the exposure and the sensitivity of the system to hazards. The system’s adaptive capacity influences the degree to which the potential impact becomes a tangible risk. The vulnerability of the exposed system can be expressed as a combination of an organization’s sensitivity and its lack of adaptive capacity (the concepts of vulnerability and climaterisk are illustrated in Figures A.2 and A.3).

NOTE 3 Though hazards are defined as sources of potential harm (e.g. heatwaves causing agricultural losses), they can sometimes lead to opportunities (e.g. higher temperatures leading to additional tourism opportunities).

NOTE 4 For further information on the concept of climate change risk, see Annex A. Table A.1 offers a comparison between concepts of vulnerability and risk.

4.2 Assessing climate change risk

5 Preparing a climate change risk assessment

5.1 Establishing the context

5.2 Identifying objectives and expected outcomes

5.3 Establishing a project team

5.4 Determining the scope and methodology

5.5 Setting the time horizon

5.6 Gathering relevant information

5.7 Preparing an implementation plan

5.8 Transparency

5.9 Participatory approach

6 Implementing a climate change risk assessment

6.1 Screening impacts and developing impact chains

6.2 Identifying indicators

6.3 Acquiring and managing data

6.4 Aggregating indicators and risk components

6.5 Assessing adaptive capacity

6.6 Interpreting and evaluating the findings

6.7 Analysing cross-sectoral interdependencies

6.8 Independent review

7 Reporting and communicating climate change risk assessment results

7.1 Climate change risk assessment report

7.2 Communicating climate change risk assessment results

7.3 Reporting findings as a basis for appropriate adaptation planning

Bibliography

BS EN ISO 14091:2021

Adaptation to climate change. Guidelines on vulnerability, impacts and risk assessment

Current

Published:

31 Mar 2021