A Resilient Future for Canada’s Built Environment
As Canada experiences more frequent and severe climate-related events — from floods and wildfires to extreme temperatures and storms — the resilience of our built environment has become an essential foundation for the well-being, safety, and prosperity of Canadian communities. By advancing resilient infrastructure and buildings, we help create communities that are safer, healthier, and better equipped to navigate the challenges and opportunities of our future climate.
The Infrastructure and Buildings Working Group (IBWG)
The IBWG was founded in 2013 through a partnership between the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR) and Engineers Canada, under the umbrella of the Natural Resources Canada-led Adaptation Platform. By 2018, its leadership expanded to include Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada (HICC) alongside ICLR as co-chairs. The IBWG emerged out of a need to address the pressing challenge of climate change on infrastructure and building sectors by enhancing the capacity and outreach of professionals and government officials in these areas. It aims to generate evidence, foster capacity building, and facilitate climate change adaptation actions to bolster resilience in these critical sectors.
A significant milestone for the IBWG has been the publication of the State of Play document, first released in March 2017 and later updated in 2023 (see State of Play). These pivotal reports outline the state of climate change adaptation within Canada during those periods, specifically concerning infrastructure and buildings. They highlight on going adaptation efforts, identify gaps and opportunities, and propose potential solutions to enhance resilience in these sectors.
Serving a broad audience, the IBWG is focused on professionals across all levels working within infrastructure, climate change adaptation, and resilience, fostering a multidisciplinary approach to tackling these complex issues.
Our Mission
Our mission is to generate evidence, foster capacity building, and facilitate climate change adaptation actions to bolster resilience in the infrastructure and buildings sectors.
What We Do
- Research & Knowledge Sharing: We gather and share the latest science, best practices, and innovations in climate-resilient infrastructure design, construction, operation, and maintenance.
- Policy & Standards Development: We contribute to the development of policies, guidelines, and standards that embed resilience and adaptability into infrastructure planning and building design at all scales.
- Cross-Sector Collaboration: We foster partnerships across sectors — including government, industry, academia, and communities — to align efforts, share knowledge, and accelerate the integration of resilience into practice.
- Capacity Building: We support practitioners and decision-makers with tools, training, and resources to build climate-resilient infrastructure and communities.
The IBWG meets virtually four times a year, typically hosting two speaker presentations followed by a moderated discussion.
Our Members
IBWG membership has grown to 200+ participants through 2020 to 2025. IBWG participation includes infrastructure owners, operators and managers, industry associations, the insurance industry, planners, engineering associations and consulting firms, architectural associations and consultants, the real estate industry, private industry and non-government representatives in addition to federal, provincial, territorial and municipal government officials working in the field of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. Members are encouraged to invite interested colleagues to participate in IBWG meetings.
Want to connect?
Interested in presenting at a future meeting? Contact the IBWG Coordinator, Anna Murphy (Anna.Murphy@infc.gc.ca), or co-chairs Chad Nelson (chad.nelson@infc.gc.ca) and Dan Sandink (dsandink@iclr.org).