| Abstract | Sustainable building practices are rooted in the need for reliable information on the long-term performance and, more specifically, the expected service-life of building materials, components, and assemblies. This need is ever more evident given the anticipated effects of climate change on the built environment and the many governmental initiatives world-wide focused on ensuring that structures are not only resilient, but also can maintain their resilience over the long term.
Climate change is considered one of one of the biggest challenges facing the global community (Armstrong 2018). Climate projections show that past, current, and future greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will influence the climate for decades (IPCC 2014). It is quite evident at this stage that the past climate can no longer be assumed representative of future conditions wherein our new and existing buildings and infrastructure are expected to perform. Building practitioners consequently have a responsibility to account for a changing climate and the risk to hazards arising from extreme events when considering the design of new and the rehabilitation of existing buildings. However, to this end, building practitioners require pertinent information to permit completing designs in consideration of the effects of climate change, as well as tools to aid their implementation. Accordingly, efforts to generate useful information, as may be retrieved from conference and symposia proceedings, as well as focused research groups and technical committees, all help support the necessity to develop practical information that in time will be taken up by the relevant standards and codes organisations. To this end, a symposium focused on “Durability and Climate Change” was held at the National Research Council (NRC), Ottawa, Ontario, in September 2018. |
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