Climate risk assessments save contractors money

Ignoring harmful climate impacts that directly affect your contracting company is risky. Successful contractors know that incorporating climate resilience is now a must-have—not just for community safety and environmental protection, but also for their enterprises’ competitiveness and longevity. We asked Ariane Laxo, vice president and director of sustainability at HGA, to make the business case for upgrading your climate focus and to share steps for getting started.

Interview by Margot Lester, edited by Bianca Prieto

Why is investing in climate resilience good business?

Think of climate resilience as business continuity. When you understand climate exposure early, you can plan for it—whether sequencing work, protecting critical assets or preparing response protocols for smoke, heat or flooding. Planning can reduce downtime and cost escalation. It also improves financial predictability as insurers increasingly price risk based on exposure to historic and future projected hazards. Where appropriate, contractors can align mitigation strategies with builder’s risk and other relevant coverages to explore whether resilient approaches may reduce costs for the hazards that matter most to the project.

A common misconception is that sustainability automatically means higher costs. In reality, the biggest cost improvements often come from coordinated decisions across the whole system. For example, a high-performance building envelope can reduce energy demand and may allow for a more efficient, cost-effective HVAC system. A higher cost line item in one place could offset costs in another. Contractors can also find cost savings by partnering with sustainability and resilience expertise early, then tying design intent directly to constructability and lifecycle value—not just first cost.

Read more about sustainability as an investment, not a cost.

Why is it time for contractors to improve—or begin—climate risk assessments?

Contractors are already designing for performance; now they need to design for uncertainty. Extreme heat, flooding, wildfire and stronger storms are rising faster than many historical data sets assumed. If you rely only on historical weather patterns, climate-driven shocks and chronic stressors can feel “unexpected” even when they’re increasingly foreseeable. This could result in construction delays, emergency change orders, productivity losses, worker safety issues and preventable asset damage. It could also mean avoidable insurance friction: more claims, higher premiums and higher deductibles. Most importantly, it strains trust with owners when conditions shift but the risk response plan wasn’t built upfront.

By incorporating future climate projections into a construction risk assessment, teams can pinpoint likely physical risks and cascading effects like schedule impacts, worker health concerns, supply chain disruptions and utilities outages. The payoff is practical: better planning, more accurate budgets and timelines and clearer conversations with owners about plausible risks and what mitigation efforts can realistically do.

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What’s the best way to do that?

The most effective approach is integrated collaboration. Bring in resilience or sustainability expertise early so climate risk analysis and project planning happen together. Ask your design partners: what climate hazards have been identified for this site and what mitigation strategies are already on the table? Often, the same hazard and projection data can be used to strengthen both design and construction risk assessments. If building in-house capacity isn’t feasible yet, partnering with a consultant can be a cost-effective on-ramp, especially when they work side-by-side with your cost estimators and risk leaders.

If we're not ready to go all in, what's one "baby step" we can take to begin baking climate resilience into our work?

Start with a simple regional reality check. Review the National Climate Assessment Regional Summaries for your geography, then crosswalk that with any available state or local projection resources, like Cal-Adapt in California. This helps you identify where your current planning may have blind spots for any acute shocks like extreme precipitation or chronic stressors like heat. Next, bring those findings into an internal discussion: do any policies, procedures or construction sequencing assumptions need to change? Then frame a climate risk discussion with clients as informed risk management.

The Level’s Take

Taking a more strategic approach to climate resilience in your business practices and construction projects is the best way to future-proof your company. It improves planning, safeguards crew and equipment and boosts competitiveness as customer demand for climate-smart structures strengthens. Even small changes create a positive impact.

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