Management Strategies to Face the Impact of Climate Change on the Sustainability of Construction Enterprises with Improvement of their Quality and Climate Change Adaptation

Extreme events associated with climate change are striking harder and more frequently, threatening the construction industry and built assets, particularly buildings, which recommend to access risks, costs and resilience to tackle climate change effects. Adverse weather and climatic conditions have a significant impact on the construction industry, particularly leading to delays in construction projects of buildings, disrupting supply chains, resulting in legal cases over insurance premiums, reducing productivity and generating significant economic losses for construction enterprises. However, climate change and the transition to a net-zero future could generate new industries and novel and increased opportunities for construction enterprises, on their path to improved sustainability. This article covers the analysis of the environmental risks that buildings could face in the near future, particularly those related to the effects of climate change and associated hygrothermal and wind actions on buildings, and management strategies aiming to minimise the corresponding socio-economic negative impact, particularly in terms of development, and to assess the readiness for climate change adaptation. An evaluation is made of management strategies to enhance building performance and quality against climate risks, with the use of information systems for anomaly detection/diagnosis and improvement of the readiness of buildings to climate change adaptation. The study of management strategies to face the impact of climate risks in buildings revealed the interest in proposing a definition of a readiness index to climate change adaptation based on climate and adaptive capacity variables. The contribution of this article to the existing knowledge is the evaluation of management strategies to face the impact of environmental risks in buildings, particularly proposing a possible definition of a climate-readiness index.