Projects

Writing and developing an innovative climate adaptation toolkit

Client: South East Councils Climate Change Alliance (SECCCA)

Audience: Local councils, including councillors, CEOs and other decision-makers, staff with operational responsibilities, and others who need to consider long-term investment to address climate change; state governments interested in enhancing community resilience at a larger scale; potential funders of similar projects, potential partners or investors, NGOs and community groups.

Description

The Enhancing Communities Resilience (ECR) project, funded by the Minderoo Foundation, aimed to prepare communities in Melbourne’s southeast for climate change impacts. Scientell developed a toolkit describing a scalable and replicable approach for other councils. Scaling up these activities and applying them to different regions, potentially at a national level, will help build community resilience to climate change across Australia by improving community preparedness through practical actions, tools, and resources.

The toolkit documented the innovative activities of the ECR project to help councils understand the problem to address, clarify what councils need to do to plan and establish a similar project, how to collate and analyse data, when to inform and engage the community, and what risks and barriers to identify.

Scientell worked with Soggy Brolly to design an accessible PDF that recreates a field-based workbook. The toolkit includes recommendations and a checklist for completing similar projects. Workbook notes pages encourage council staff to consider the steps and lessons in the context of their regions and responsibilities. The toolkit includes functional guidance and practical advice, as well as theory and background.

Innovative Features

Scientell worked with Science into Action to develop a communication strategy early in the project to simply and clearly communicate the project’s plans and outputs to ensure it influences the change required. The toolkit included a summary of suggested communication activities, a glossary to help achieve consistent language, and references for further reading.