Introduction
Having drafted both the vision, aims, and themes, and the priority actions for your plan, it is now time to finalise your forward strategy, assign responsibility, and ensure costing and resourcing is sufficient. This is the step in which you should seek agreement on the different aspects of your plan, and sign-off from your working groups and senior executives. Ideally this step can be done in tandem with the finalising of your mitigation plan, to have the most efficient discussions with senior leaders, and to promote a joined-up approach to the entire climate action planning in your organisation.
Aims
Agree Actions which reduce vulnerability to climate impacts and finalise plan
Objectives
Agree ownership and resource for each action
Agree your ambition, indicators and monitoring framework
Finalise the text of the plan
Sign off your Adaptation Plan as necessary (e.g. working groups, senior staff, committee, public consultation)
This step will likely require one–to–one meetings, especially with Heads of Departments, to agree ownership, resource and accuracy of actions.
Consider your level of risk acceptance as an organisation, and your level of ambition for this plan. Have you covered:
- The most relevant CCRA Risks to your assets and operations?
- Cross Border issues?
- Organisational Capabilities – e.g. Leadership, Partnership, Evidence and Resource?
- The Climate Change Committee’s 10 Principles for good adaptation?
Overall, you need to consider your balance of approaches, between action focused on specific priority risks, versus building in long-term adaptive flexibility and capacity more broadly, capturing benefits and opportunities.
Public Body Reporting
A centralised resource designed to support public bodies in fulfilling their climate change reporting obligations under the Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 which are set by The Climate Change (Reporting Bodies) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2024 (‘the Public Body Reporting Regulations’)
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Governance and Stakeholder Engagement
This document provides guidance on setting meetings to secure agreement and commitment from your colleagues or senior staff, and on the sign off process to review, finalise, and agree on areas of responsibility.
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1. Hold one to-ones with relevant action owners on draft action plan to agree ownership and resource of actions.
2. Agree your ambition as an organisation, by finalising your action plan along with setting out what indicators you will measure as part of your monitoring framework.
3. Develop text of the plan (including any case studies) – keep this short and usable.
4. Finalise plan and gain agreement through organisation processes. This can include officer working groups, senior staff, relevant senior management committees, elected officials or public consultation).
Step Four Complete
This step is never fully complete, as a focus on climate adaptation should become a default way of working; assessing the level of acceptable risk in any action by your organisation. Your plan needs to be reviewed and monitored for effectiveness at regular intervals, so head to Step 5 to find out more.
