The Need For Incrementalism
Abby Ross, CEO, The Resiliency Company
Last year, The Resiliency Company created a playbook for commercial real estate. From Vulnerability to Value, A Risk Mitigation Playbook to Drive Resilient Development is designed to show how the ecosystem of stakeholders in the sector — such as lenders, investors, developers, owners, designers, contractors, and insurers — can work in coordination to reduce weather-related risk and unlock new value.
It drew on insights from over 55 companies representing $2.468 trillion in market value and reframed risk management as a shared, upstream responsibility, where early decisions and cross-stakeholder alignment would result in a more resilient asset.
We took an early draft to an event at Climate Week NY in 2025 to get feedback from industry leaders. Everyone was in alignment with the premise and utility of the playbook, and acknowledged that the industry had the knowledge, technology, and standards for risk reduction.
However, when we broke out into groups to explore how to operationalize the playbook in the context of the various stakeholder silos, the realities of change became very real. Participants expressed the challenges of people not wanting to break out from what they currently do or uncertainty of the returns. I watched as people that were bought in on a concept wrestle with how to justify advocating for a change within their organization without being able to directly attribute ROI to the change.
Most of the barriers to adopting a different way of doing things are not in the merit of a new process or the promise of better outcomes. They’re in how hard it is to change and whether people truly believe that better outcomes are possible. And in order to overcome those barriers, we need to accept that change is likely to be incremental.
America’s infrastructure was built for the past, a time when the weather was stable and hence predictable. Adapting to the changed and changing weather, requires new ways of working, ways that might make people feel nervous and insecure. While some may wish it, becoming resilient won’t happen through some massive reform but a steady stream of small, gradual changes. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be significant.
When you start going to the gym, you wouldn’t pick up a 200lb weight. You’d start with something lighter and build your way from there. It’ll be the same with resiliency. We’ll start with small, gradual changes, get used to the process of change, and start to see the outcomes. Over time, those small changes and outcomes will embolden us to make bigger changes in pursuit of bigger outcomes.
In that way, our changes will add up to the big change we need to thrive amidst the changed and changing weather, including accelerating extreme weather.
