VULNERABILITY OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS The UK’s climate is changing fast: that’s going to cause us real problems - unless we can adapt public sector buildings successfully

Karl Limbert

Karl began his career as an intelligence officer before taking up senior positions in both central and local government. During the 2010s, Karl successfully led several large public private partnership programmes in the regeneration, education, and energy sectors before being appointed as Director of Property for the London Borough of Kingston Upon Thames.  Karl joined ENGIE in 2017 as Commercial Development Director and now works at main board level as UK Strategy Director for EQUANS. A proud product of several ‘bog standard’ comprehensive schools, Karl is a Fellow of the University of Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy, an Academician of the Academy of Urbanism, a Committee Member of the Cambridge University Land Society ESG and Sustainability Forum, and is currently undertaking research into AI and the future of work at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. Outside of work, Karl enjoys trail running, gravel biking, and snowboarding.

Karl opened the presentations on net zero at ACES National Conference in September 2024. He kindly agreed to write this article: “…while we maintain our drive toward net zero, we must also prepare our buildings and infrastructure for the climate impacts that are now inevitable.” Karl advises: “understanding building-specific climate vulnerabilities is crucial for targeting limited resources effectively…. Property professionals who understand their buildings' specific vulnerabilities to climate stress will be better positioned to protect asset value and maintain operational performance.” 

Most of the buildings we live and work in across the UK were designed for a climate that no longer exists. The majority of our hospitals, schools, offices, and social housing were constructed around the middle of the last century. Yet the UK's climate has changed significantly since then - average temperatures have risen by 1°C, winters have become 17% wetter, and the amount of rain falling on the stormiest days has increased by 20%. The pace of climate change is clearly accelerating. November 2024 was the wettest month ever recorded in the UK, while new data shows that parts of England are now warming at nearly four times the global rate. As Emma Pinchbeck, CEO of the Climate Change Committee, has recently warned, our buildings and infrastructure are simply "not ready" for the climate we're already experiencing, let alone what's to come. 

The new challenge: combining net zero with climate adaptation 

The climate crisis has started a new phase characterised by two accelerating but different trends. On one hand, climate action is gaining momentum - the UK is making real progress toward net zero, with renewable energy deployment, electric vehicle adoption, and building efficiency improvements all accelerating. 

Yet on the other hand, climate impacts are already hitting harder and sooner than expected. Global climate emissions continue to rise, and data shows that we're consistently trending towards the worst-case, rather than best-case future climate scenarios. All indicators suggest that the physical risks already facing our buildings and infrastructure will only intensify - more extreme heat, more intense rainfall, more severe storms. 

This means that while we maintain our drive toward net zero, we must also prepare our buildings and infrastructure for the climate impacts that are now inevitable. The organisations that thrive in this new reality will be those that pursue meaningful emissions reductions alongside robust climate adaptation measures. 

Public sector buildings are on the front line of the adaptation challenge 

The public sector estate provides a stark warning of what happens when aging buildings face increasing climate stress. Already, 1.6 million schoolchildren study in buildings needing major repairs, with some classrooms experiencing overheating for more than 40% of school hours. Research shows that taking an exam on a 32°C day leads to a 10% lower likelihood of passing, compared with a 22°C day. The impacts extend beyond education - living rooms and bedrooms in social housing are more than three times more likely to overheat than those in privately owned homes, potentially exposing the most vulnerable in society to extreme thermal discomfort on a regular basis. 

The NHS repair backlog has more than trebled to £13.8bn, with £2.7bn of repairs classified as "high risk" because they endanger patients and staff. In our courts, 86% of buildings are rated poor or unsatisfactory, while 29% of prisons have serious maintenance issues creating "inhumane" conditions. 

These maintenance challenges are already being exacerbated by climate impacts. Last year alone, failing healthcare buildings and equipment led to 3,318 clinical service cancellations - 64 disruptions every week. In December 2023, Storm Henk flooded electrical infrastructure at multiple hospitals, forcing emergency evacuations. Many hospitals are now routinely experiencing critical overheating - in 2023, NHS trusts reported over 6,800 overheating incidents, more than double the number from six years ago. 

As climate impacts intensify, these problems will only worsen. Buildings already struggling with basic maintenance will become increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather events. Organisations facing massive repair backlogs will find it even harder to maintain operational resilience as climate stresses increase. 

Successful climate adaptation needs to happen in buildings and infrastructure 

Climate change happens in natural systems - in changing air temperatures, rainfall patterns, and weather extremes - but its impacts on society are mediated almost entirely through human systems. Almost all human systems, including the economy, healthcare, food, housing, local government, justice, emergency services, defence, and utilities depend on an underlying system of buildings and physical infrastructure. This means that those buildings and infrastructure must be the focus for understanding where and when climate risks will materialise, as well as for planning which adaptation measures to deliver and how. 

However, most climate risk analysis and adaptation planning is currently done at relatively high levels - looking at thematic risks facing entire regions, cities, or economic sectors. While these analyses can be valuable for raising awareness and identifying broad trends, they lack the granular detail needed to work out how to protect critical social infrastructure like schools, hospitals, prisons, and social housing. 

Buildings and infrastructure display significant variation in their response to climate stresses. Design specifications, construction methods, material choices, operational systems, and maintenance regimes all influence a structure's climate vulnerability. For example, two 1960s hospital wings on the same site might respond very differently to a heatwave - one with large south-facing windows and poor ventilation could reach dangerous internal temperatures, while another with external shading and operable windows might maintain safe conditions. Similarly, two identical school buildings could have very different extreme precipitation vulnerabilities based on their maintenance history - one with well-maintained roof drainage might cope with intense rainfall, while another with blocked gutters and aging downpipes could suffer serious water ingress. 

Usage patterns and occupancy requirements further complicate the picture. A data centre operating 24/7 with heat-generating equipment faces different overheating risks than an administrative building used only during office hours. Put simply: the same climate risk – whether its overheating, flooding, or storm damage - can have radically different impacts on buildings even when they are in the same location. 

Conversely, identical buildings in different locations can face vastly different climate risks due to local environmental factors. Urban heat island effects mean that a hospital building from the 1970s could experience significantly higher temperatures in a densely developed area than its counterpart in the same city that happens to be located adjacent to well-established urban parkland. Similarly, identical buildings can face very different flooding risks depending on local topography, drainage infrastructure, and surface water management. A social housing block in a high-density urban area surrounded by extensive impermeable surfacing and aging drainage systems faces greater pluvial flooding risk than one in a location with more permeable surfaces and better-maintained infrastructure. 

Moving beyond historical data and desktop analysis 

Observed levels of global warming are outstripping what was predicted in climate models, suggesting that climate risks may be more severe and arrive sooner than originally anticipated. Buildings and infrastructure that performed adequately under historical weather conditions may face entirely new challenges as temperatures rise, rainfall patterns shift, and extreme weather events intensify beyond historical UK norms. 

The rate and nature of future climate change depends on complex socioeconomic variables including global emissions pathways and geopolitical trends. For these reasons, it is important to consider a broad range of forecast climate data, such as that provided by the Met Office, and to consider it in the context of the scenarios used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. These scenarios allow us to model how different global development pathways might affect local climate conditions. By downscaling these global scenarios to specific locations, we can forecast how key climate variables like temperature or precipitation might change under different future scenarios. 

Modern climate analytics packages attempt to combine scenario-based climate forecasting with analysis of building characteristics to assess physical climate risks for buildings. While these tools can provide useful high-level insights about how climate risks might interact with buildings, they are severely constrained by their reliance on limited data. Software can scrape basic information about a building's age, size, and use class from open sources, but this data is often outdated and incomplete. More crucially, it cannot capture critical variables such as building fabric condition, mechanical and electrical systems specifications, maintenance regimes, actual usage patterns, and energy consumption - all of which significantly influence a building's vulnerability to climate risks. 

A more robust approach combines forward-looking climate scenarios with detailed building-level analysis based on comprehensive site inspections. This allows organisations to understand not just how their assets have performed in the past or how they might theoretically respond to climate stress, but how specific building characteristics will interact with emerging and unfamiliar conditions. Only detailed, on-site inspection can reveal these essential characteristics. 

The financial imperative for early climate adaptation 

The business case for proactive climate risk assessment is compelling. Emergency repairs and urgent interventions typically cost several times more than planned adaptations. Service disruptions from climate events can incur massive operational costs, Significant capital damages, and potentially lost revenue. Meanwhile, proactive adaptation can be integrated into existing maintenance and capital cycles, allowing organisations systematically to improve resilience while managing costs. 

For public sector organisations already facing huge maintenance backlogs, understanding building-specific climate vulnerabilities is crucial for targeting limited resources effectively. This enables them to reprogramme maintenance and capital investment to protect their most critical and vulnerable assets first. 

Case study: The UK's first climate risk assessment for a major hospital trust 

Equans conducted the UK's first Climate Risk, Adaptation and Resilience Assessment in partnership with a major NHS hospitals trust to demonstrate how this approach works in practice. Using its specialised methodology, Equans assessed eight buildings across two hospital campuses to understand how critical public service buildings are impacted by climate stresses both now, and in future. 

The assessment identified that the trust was likely to be vulnerable to climate risks relating to heat stress, extreme precipitation, pluvial flooding, and extreme cold, even under the most optimistic future climate scenarios. Detailed analysis of building and operational data identified 30 critical risks that could have major impacts on clinical practice, operational resilience, and workforce effectiveness, if left unmanaged. 

Heat stress emerged as the most critical risk. Analysis showed that during the September 2023 heatwave, one wing without mechanical ventilation saw internal temperatures exceed 32°C and never drop below 27.1°C during working hours. Internal areas were consistently 2-4°C warmer than external temperatures, exceeding safe thresholds for patients and staff. The trust was already struggling with significant operational impacts - having to move vulnerable patients between buildings to avoid the hottest areas, placing additional demands on staff while driving up energy costs and carbon emissions. 

Most concerning, analysis of future climate data showed that even under the most optimistic scenarios, the trust was likely to experience significantly more days when internal temperatures would exceed safe thresholds. However, by identifying building-specific vulnerabilities early, the trust is able to work with Equans to implement targeted preventative maintenance before emergency repairs become necessary. Equans is also developing an innovative machine learning model that predicts which rooms are likely to be vulnerable to heat stress, helping proactively to safeguard the most vulnerable patients during periods of heatwaves, and enabling more efficient use of cooling equipment. 

A call to action for public sector property professionals 

The climate has changed, and our approach to managing buildings must change with it. As natural systems continue to shift, the resilience of our built environment will determine how these changes impact human society. Property professionals who understand their buildings' specific vulnerabilities to climate stress will be better positioned to protect asset value and maintain operational performance. 

The tools and methodologies for building-level climate risk assessment exist today. The organisations that thrive will be those that act now to understand and strengthen their buildings' resilience to our changing climate. Public sector property professionals must incorporate climate risk assessment and adaptation works into their standard practices by: 

1. Assessing building-specific vulnerabilities to both current and future climate conditions 

2. Developing adaptation strategies tailored to each building's unique characteristics 

3. Integrating climate adaptation measures into planned maintenance and upgrade cycles 

4. Monitoring building performance against climate stresses to validate and refine approaches 

5. Updating operational procedures to reflect changing climate conditions.