Background
‘Retrofitting’ - increasing the energy efficiency of buildings by adding new components to old buildings (including homes, commercial buildings, schools etc.) plays a key role in the UK’s decarbonisation strategy. However, the concept of addressing legacies as a critical part of the net zero transition should be expanded beyond just physical buildings, to the way we manage and approach economic development programmes. Based on a British Expertise International Roundtable held on June 18th, this article will focus on the need for retrofitting climate change adaptation into existing development activities, going beyond project-based approaches to adopting a systems perspective. It will also cover initial ideas for this process, including approaches to programme design, procurement, and localisation efforts – all of which will require further development through ongoing conversations and collaboration. [1]
The importance of retrofitting climate into existing economic development programmes
The roundtable underlined the urgent need to deploy retrofitting as a key component of addressing climate challenges. The current focus has been on risk mitigation, often overshadowing the equally crucial elements of resilience and adaptation. While climate mitigation is undeniably important, it should not stop us from focusing at the same time on adaptation. Adaptation, with its broad range of context-specific resilience-building approaches, presents numerous opportunities for long-term systemic thinking.
Despite the many COPs and other encouraging climate initiatives, transition is still lagging what is required. According to an article published in “Nature”, “Progress is much too slow, and by almost any measure, the world is falling far short of the 1.5 °C goal. Greenhouse gas emissions are at an all-time high, tropical forests are being chopped down at near-record rates, fossil-fuel subsidies are going up, and coal-fired power stations are still being built.” [2] This will result in increasing impacts from climate change and require additional attention to adaptation. Given the urgency for climate transition, being deliberate about retrofitting legacy systems is crucial.
Addressing the legacy of the past and ensuring our existing stock of infrastructure is climate-fit for the present and future climate is a critical component of climate adaptation. For example, the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook highlighted that although investments in clean energy have risen by 40% since 2020, coal, oil, and natural gas still accounted over recent decades for 80% of the global energy supply. [3] Although new projects, infrastructures, and initiatives can often seem more exciting, making meaningful changes to legacy projects or programmes is essential to drive a fast, systematic transition towards a climate-resilient society.
How can we retrofit a climate focus into international development
There are several considerations to take into account when updating our development approach and working with existing programmes. For example, it's important to improve soft skills at every stage of programme delivery, from design to implementation. We will explore this further in a forthcoming article. This article will focus on two other aspects that we can address immediately: procurement and the localization of projects/programmes.
Benefits of a flexible and creative procurement mechanism
First, current procurement processes often do not allow for much among potential delivery partners or suppliers collaboration before the competition. To stay competitive, organisations bidding for development projects and programmes can often miss out on the opportunity to work together to create more comprehensive and innovative solutions. Whilst it's important to maintain unique offerings and competition, there is potential for a more flexible procurement approach that enables pre-competition collaboration. How this idea can be taken forward into implementation, will require further ongoing discussions – exploring whether this is feasible from a practical perspective, which actors could drive the change, whether it can be scaled or mainstreamed, and more.
Second, shifting from project-based procurement to a programmatic approach can contribute to enabling retrofitting climate change in development programmes, as programmes tend to adopt a more systems approach to addressing interlinked issues, usually involving multiple projects or workstreams that fit together to achieve broader impact in terms of scale and timeframe. Additionally, procurement in a project-based format tends to be shorter term (e.g., 3-5 years), with a high turnover, making it challenging for delivery partners to consider the long-term systemic implications of proposed solutions. Although funding constraints and the high cost of managing a consortium delivery partner for large programmes can be legitimate barriers to adopting a programmatic approach, individual projects could still be grouped under a broader programme. The opportunities for cross-cutting collaboration and engagement between stakeholders, sectors and issues, through a more comprehensive scope, should be considered. The specific changes required to enable this shift, such as changes to development funding, organisational capability, supply chain organisation, and addressing relevant blockers/enablers are all topics to be taken forward into future conversations.
Localisation - a critical component
Localisation is a powerful tool in the systematic approach to climate adaptation in existing programmes. It has been identified as a key area of focus in the last UK Government’s International Development White Paper, “International development in a contested world: ending extreme poverty and tackling climate change” published in November 2023 by the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Affairs. [4] Localisation of projects covers multiple aspects:
- Tailoring projects and programmes to local conditions, challenges, opportunities and politics: This requires interventions to leverage broader context-specific knowledge and consider nuanced local politics across levels (such as regional, provincial, and village levels).
- Fostering ownership and collaboration: This requires engaging local institutions and groups, such as Ministries, faith communities and village organisations. Communities that feel ‘bought-in’ to projects will likely value them differently from those who feel projects have been imposed on them, with implications for payment of user charges and participation in the construction and then operation and management of those projects post-completion.
- Recognition among donor organisations that projects must be planned and resourced with a view to the whole of their operating lifecycle, not just the delivery phase. This will feed into significantly aid the implementation of retrofitting for ongoing programme maintenance and offers a promising path forward.
- Projects can be planned to create wider local social and economic benefits.
For example, the FCDO’s Rural Access Programme in Nepal has been running for 20 years. [5] It addressed the "build and forget" approach to infrastructure projects from 15 years ago, which left many roads unusable due to lack of maintenance and prevented many of Nepal’s population from accessing urban areas. The programme not only sought to retrofit and improve maintenance of existing roads but also emphasised involving local communities for long-term sustainability. It created over 19 million days of employment (of which 40% were for women) and provided technical assistance to local communities and provincial government bodies to ensure ongoing maintenance and adaptation where necessary.
Final thoughts
Reflecting on the legacy of our economic development approach and the need to adapt it to the current climate is a crucial and often overlooked topic. However, this conversation opens the doors to what can be done better— whether through enabling mechanisms in procurement and programme design, embedding localisation approaches, or in other ways. Like other organisations that work in the development space, Mott MacDonald is well positioned to lead the mission of retrofitting climate change into existing economic development programmes, driving the shift from a risk-focused to an opportunity-driven approach by aligning economic development policies with long-term climate goals.
Authors:
Monami Miyamoto, Graduate Climate Change Consultant, Mott MacDonald
John Carstensen, Climate Change Lead (ISMA), Mott MacDonald
Appendix:
[2] Is it too late to keep global warming below 1.5 °C? The challenge in 7 charts (nature.com)
[3] Executive summary – World Energy Outlook 2023 – Analysis - IEA
[4] Reviewing the International Development White Paper (britishexpertise.org)
[5] Nepal: Building Transportation Options for Poverty Reduction - DTGlobal(dt-global.com)
