On September 8, ASCE released its updated toolkit, Pathways to Resilient Communities: Infrastructure Designed for the Environmental Hazards in Your Region. The toolkit offers guidance for civil engineers, community leaders, and related stakeholders to adopt and implement up-to-date, modern building codes and standards responsive to extreme weather and environmental threats. As a standards development organization (SDO), ASCE produces design standards that are adopted into building codes and provides unique guidance to each community’s challenges across the globe.
Initially released in 2023, the toolkit promotes resilient infrastructure through the adoption of standards, including ASCE 7-22, Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria for Building and Other Structures. Additionally, the toolkit promotes codes and standards applicable to different disaster events such as floods, earthquakes, wind, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, and winter weather, and explains how each standard can benefit communities vulnerable to these hazards. The revised edition also highlights costs associated with natural disasters and updated standard practices for sustainable infrastructure through ASCE 73-23.
In addition to highlighting ASCE’s standards, the toolkit showcases the Envision program, operated by the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure and developed by ASCE, the American Public Works Association (APWA), and the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC). The Envision Program is a comprehensive tool which helps businesses and government design and build civil infrastructure that addresses climate change, public health, environmental justice, and the project’s economic benefits. Envision verification provides an evidence-based approach to demonstrate how a project meets the community’s needs and expectations.
To better illustrate Pathways purpose and use, ASCE hosted a special briefing this week on Capitol Hill. Panelists explained how updated codes and standards strengthen the built environment against disasters and shared outcomes associated with adoption, including case examples of retrofitted structures.