Equitable Resilience Framework
Top-down solutions to the climate crisis aren't working for communities. That needs to change.
Video: What is the ERF?
(Infographic) Explaining the ERF
LCAU + RCL Workshop on Equitable Resilience
Graphic Facilitation by Marsha Dunn
Workshop at MIT Sloan School of Management
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Why focus on equitable resilience?
Climate change will disrupt the fundamental conditions that human societies depend on to thrive. These impacts will be profoundly unequal: while some individuals and communities have the resources to adapt and avoid the worst effects of climate change, others will face uninhabitable homes, vanishing livelihoods, and deteriorating health and security.
The history of social engineering projects shows that top-down solutions fail vulnerable communities. Climate policy needs to change.
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Who is affected?
Underserved and low-income neighborhoods lack infrastructure to keep residents safe from hazards like excessive heat and floods. Indigenous peoples, whose survival depends on ecosystems that are now rapidly changing, face an existential threat.
How can climate planning address their needs, hopes, and aspirations?
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What is the ERF?
The Equitable Resilience Framework (ERF) is a toolkit for policymakers for community-led planning, decision-making, and communication. It emphasizes three pillars of planning:
1. Capabilities Approach eschews simplistic economic measures—like income—in favor of a holistic understanding
of human flourishing. The development of human capacities (e.g., life, health, mobility, education, etc.) are prioritized
over economic growth. Local communities determine which capabilities to prioritize, and policy is designed with
regard for the local infrastructure, culture, and values.
2. Modified Trade-Off Analysis integrates strategies for problem formulation, stakeholder and power analyses,
consensus building, and multi-criteria analysis to arrive at transparent, equitable, and effective solutions.
3. Knowledge Convergence increases knowledge among local communities, governments, and scientists using
transmedia communication, data visualizations, artistic interventions, and community science and data integration.
Public communication about climate science uses multiple channels, and diverse sources of knowledge (e.g.,
Indigenous ecological knowledge) are recognized.
Interested in partnering?
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We welcome government, private sector, non-profit, and academic collaborations.