Non-paper Guidelines for Project Managers: Making vulnerable investments climate resilient

The primary objective of these Guidelines is to help developers of physical assets and infrastructure incorporate resilience to current climate variability and future climate change within their projects. These Guidelines form part of the overall EU effort to mainstream climate change adaptation, following on from the White Paper on Adapting to Climate Change published by the Commission in 2009. They are designed to provide support to developers of physical assets and infrastructure. They are aimed at helping project developers understand the steps they can take to make investment projects resilient to climate variability and change.

The Guidelines provide information on the steps that can be undertaken to integrate climate resilience within a familiar project lifecycle appraisal practiced by project developers. The Commission strongly encourages the use of the Guidelines, both in EU-funded projects and more widely. They sit within the evolving policy context on adaptation in the Commission, which is seeing climate resilience being incorporated into a number of policy areas and financing instruments of relevance to asset and infrastructure. EU and national institutions as well as financial organisations could consider whether they want to recommend or require use of the guidelines for projects they finance. Individual Member States will have varying legislative and regulatory standards governing project design.