Jacobs joins 100 Resilient Cities Platform of Partners

Pasadena, Calif. — Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. joined 100 Resilient Cities (100RC), pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation, as a Platform Partner to give urban centers across the world access to tools to help them plan and implement citywide resilience strategies and establish measures for success.

Working with 100RC, Jacobs is providing Resilience Sprint Start, an intensive three-day workshop that helps city government participants develop an action-oriented, results-based implementation plan for the built and natural environment, as well as planning and management initiatives that have already been identified in a city’s resilience strategy. As part of the agreement, Jacobs is joining 100RC’s network of Platform Partners – a group of specialized organizations from the public, private, academic, and non-profit sectors that provide critical tools and services to help 100RC member cities better adapt to the shocks and stresses of our world and transform them into opportunities for growth.

In making the announcement, Jacobs President Buildings and Infrastructure Bob Pragada stated, “We are absolutely delighted to be working with 100RC to harness our global expertise in sustainability, environment, infrastructure, and resilience planning to help cities’ develop the proper tools and the organizational support to achieve their resilience building goals.”

100 Resilient Cities President Michael Berkowitz added, “In an increasingly complex and challenging world, cities need to leverage expertise from companies like Jacobs to withstand the shocks and stresses of the 21st century. By providing Resilience Sprint Starts to our network, Jacobs is leading by example, and is helping to build a global resilience movement. The Resilience Sprint Starts will build off of existing planning efforts to keep momentum moving forward, and inspire action towards realizing resilience goals.”

100RC is dedicated to helping cities around the world become more resilient to the physical, social, and economic challenges that are a growing part of the 21st century. 100RC supports the adoption and incorporation of a view of resilience that includes not just the shocks – earthquakes, fires, floods, etc. – but also the stresses that weaken the fabric of a city on a day-to-day or cyclical basis. Examples of these stresses include high unemployment; an overtaxed or inefficient public transportation system; endemic violence; or chronic food and water shortages. By addressing both the shocks and the stresses, a city becomes more able to respond to adverse events, and is overall better able to deliver basic functions in both good times and bad, to all populations.

Cities in the 100RC network are provided with the resources necessary to develop a roadmap to resilience along four main pathways:

• Financial and logistical guidance for establishing an innovative new position in city government, a Chief Resilience Officer, who will lead the city’s resilience efforts;
• Expert support for development of a robust resilience strategy;
• Access to solutions, service providers, and partners from the private, public and NGO sectors who can help them develop and implement their resilience strategies; and
• Membership of a global network of member cities who can learn from and help each other.

Through these actions, 100RC aims not only to help individual cities become more resilient, but will facilitate the building of a global practice of resilience among governments, NGOs, the private sector, and individual citizens.