The ASTM International, a standards-setting organization, has released a new standard guide, Property Resilience Assessment (PRA), to help assess a property’s degree of resilience to physical climate hazards such as storms, wildfires, and floods. The PRA is designed to provide a consistent means of determining a property’s risk level and what measures can be taken to improve its resilience. The standard is intended to be conducted alongside other assessments, such as property condition assessments and environmental site assessments, and is expected to become widely adopted in the real estate industry.
The PRA guides property owners, developers, investors, lenders, and design teams through three stages: identifying hazards, conducting an on-site evaluation, and determining conceptual resilience measures. The standard aims to create a common language and framework for evaluating property resilience, which can enhance due diligence, investment decision-making, and risk management.
The PRA is expected to have a broad impact, from raising awareness of physical risk and resilience to standardizing definitions and creating a common language around exposure, vulnerability, and risk. It may also lead to cost savings from insurance premiums and insurer availability, and encourage lenders to require borrowers to conduct PRAs as part of their due diligence.