Climate change is just one of many challenges that need to be considered and managed by a range of organisations: such as businesses, local governments, and industries. It adds extra pressure to already limited resources, and many organisations feel they lack the money or technical skills to address climate risks.

However, limited resources don’t mean adaptation planning can’t happen. There are simple actions every organisation can take. In this guide, we outline the minimum steps for climate adaptation and point to useful information, datasets, and guidance.

We also introduce CoastAdapt’s decision-making framework, C-CADS, and highlight key steps you can take within it.

By following these suggestions, you can create a basic adaptation plan with minimal time and resources.

A good first step in climate adaptation is to understand the broader climate risks in your area. A quick desktop review can help identify key climate-related hazards and their potential impacts..

In coastal areas, common hazards include inundation and erosion caused by sea-level rise. Risk levels depend on factors such as how easily your shoreline erodes and the amount of housing and infrastructure and key cultural and ecological systems are located near the coast.

CoastAdapt offers useful resources to help you:

• Explore what you need to understand about adaptation, including, for example, what is fair and just adaptation
• Learn about the causes of climate change and how to access climate scenarios for your region.
• Access information specific for your local government area on sea-level rise, coastline vulnerability, and areas at risk of inundation for future timeframes in the CoastAdapt tool: Sea-Level Rise and You.
• Access datasets and visualisation tools for deeper analysis
  • check your local jurisdiction: States and many councils now have good local information that might be sufficient for a first pass assessment.

Combine this information with any local data you already hold to carry out a risk assessment. A first‑pass assessment is a good starting point; you can then refer to guidance three levels of assessment.

CoastAdapt also provides guidance and an easy-to-use spreadsheet tool for a first-pass risk assessment (Risk assessment templates).

Remember, climate risks aren’t limited to coastal hazards. You should also consider other threats such as more frequent heatwaves and bushfires. NCCARF’s Synthesis Products provide information on these broader risks.

Reviewing your current management plans – such as coastal zone or organisational risk management plans – against future climate conditions can reveal whether updates are needed. These plans often play a critical role in business continuity, so if they may become less effective under climate change or sea-level rise, it’s important to act now.

This process also helps raise awareness among senior management about how climate change could affect core operations.

When creating an adaptation plan, make sure it aligns with your existing plans and goals.

Key questions to ask in testing plan robustness.

• Will this plan or strategy be affected by climate stressors that may change in the medium or long term?
  • What are those stressors, and how can impacts be reduced?
• How effective will the plan be under projected changes in climate and sea level?
• Could the plan unintentionally worsen climate impacts or conflict with future adaptation actions?
• Is the plan still relevant in a climate-affected future?
• Can the plan be extended or modified to include climate risks?
  • If so, do you need a separate adaptation plan, or will updates to existing plans suffice?
  • Who needs to be involved to make this happen?

Whatever actions you take, it’s essential to share the identified risks with relevant stakeholders so they understand the situation. These stakeholders may be internal (such as departmental heads) or external (such as at-risk communities, suppliers, and customers).

Communicating risks effectively is key to gaining support and buy-in for any adaptation measures.

The level of action you take depends on your exposure to current and future climate risks and the amount of risk your organisation, stakeholders, and community are willing to accept.

Because climate change involves uncertainty, increasingly organisations choose to delay action until it becomes essential. This approach, called adaptation pathways, involves analysing climate hazards, understanding how they may change, and identifying the point, or threshold, where risks become unacceptable and action can no longer be postponed.

If you take an approach of adaptation pathways – i.e. the risks from climate change do not currently require you to take action – then ensure that you carefully document this decision, including the underlying rationale.

Ideally, you should lay out the future adaptation pathway, including determining the threshold events (e.g. triggers such as unacceptable levels of flooding or new information) which will stimulate action, and how thresholds will be determined and measured.

At a minimum, you should set a definite deadline to revisit the situation to re-evaluate the risks.

It’s possible to create a high-level, preliminary adaptation plan with limited time and resources.

CoastAdapt offers decision-support system called C-CADS (Coastal Climate Adaptation Decision Support).

• This process guides you through key steps to help you develop, implement, and monitor an adaptation plan. It also provides advice on building a business case, exploring financial options, prioritising actions, and gaining community support.
• You can use C-CADS in full to create a comprehensive plan, or start with the early steps to produce a high-level plan. This initial scan can show whether risks are low enough to delay action or whether resources must be allocated immediately to address urgent threats. The goal of this first-pass assessment is to determine how urgent is the need for action.