The City’s Breaking and Everybody’s Shaking

The effects of climate change on a global level are well-documented: the seas are rising, droughts and floods are becoming more severe, and storms are becoming more intense.  But little work has been done to examine how climate change will affect two key industries: construction and insurance.  Because the effects of climate change will necessarily impact physical infrastructure, this essay argues that the construction and insurance industries need urgently to consider how they can avoid, or mitigate, these effects. 

This essay makes several recommendations:

• legislative and regulatory reform is needed, especially to the Building Act and Building Code;
• the construction industry should invest in developing eco-friendly building products and methods; and
• the insurance industry should promote sustainable business practices and should develop policies which incentivise eco-friendly development.

Lydia’s essay was recently ‘Recommended for Publication’ by The New Zealand Society of Construction in the The New Zealand Society of Construction Law Essay Prize 2020.  To read Lydia’s essay please click here.