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By Joe Boomgaard | MiBiz
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GRAND RAPIDS—The City of Grand Rapids has partnered with ICLEI, the national organization for local governments for sustainability, to debut ADAPT, a new online climate adaptation tool tailored for local governments. Grand Rapids is one of seven communities nationwide that is participating in the program’s national launch.

It’s not often that Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell gets to utter a dirty word in public, but that’s exactly what he’s doing as he discusses the city’s climate adaptation strategies. Until recently, adaptation was seen as giving in and accepting climate change rather than trying to fight it.

But as the world changes around Grand Rapids, the city needs to understand what it needs to do to respond — ranging from how to help seniors through more extreme heat events to dealing with new demands on infrastructure from more severe weather events, Heartwell said.

“We want to build on the successes we’ve had and begin planning for a future … unlike one we’ve ever known before,” Heartwell said at the launch.

Haris Alibasic, director of the office of energy and sustainability at the city, told MiBiz it was significant that Grand Rapids was chosen to participate in the national launch. The city already started down the road of considering adaptation with its Green Grand Rapids sustainability plan, but the ADAPT tool will help the city identify which of its resources and assets are vulnerable under a changing climate.

“This is the first step in a comprehensive planning process,” Alibasic said.

Michael Davidson, Midwest regional director for ICLEI, said the city was chosen for the “innovative work” it has done on sustainability and its master planning process. The city can play a major role in the Great Lakes region in leading and modeling how other cities should react to protect the Great Lakes ecosystem, he said.

“Grand Rapids seemed like a natural fit. It has the political leadership you need to have,” Davidson told MiBiz.

The no-cost ADAPT tool will help the city plan for a changing climate by identifying vulnerabilities, setting preparedness goals and implementing steps to increase the community’s resilience to climate change.

Davidson said preparedness certainly has economic implications.

“An economy that’s not prepared won’t be a strong economy. Everyone pays in the end,” he said.

City Manager Greg Sundstrom told MiBiz he commends Heartwell’s leadership on the sustainability planning, which will only help keep the community viable in the long run. Assistant City Manager Eric DeLong said the work with ICLEI is another example of the city’s long history of using partnership effectively.