278 | THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND

Interestingly," Polman continues, "the challenge [for businessl ^

is likely to encourage a much more collaborative form of capitalism^ |
Companies will have to work with each other, not just governments. I
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and civil society . . . growth
strategies will have to be more inclusive. . . . In a world of scarcity," he
CONCLUSION
writes, there will be greater pressure to ensure that wealth is created
not just for the few, but that the benefits are spread more widely."73 Realizing the Resilience Dividend
In other words, the benefits of the future economy must be shared.
Because we are all inhabiting a single planet and will inevitably suf- )
fer the consequences of misused resources and of civil unrest sparked
by inequality and poverty, we must find ways to share the benefits
of responsible business strategies and sustainable growth. We need to
think, therefore, much less about short-term financial gain and much
more about resilience and the dividends it can bring. >haun Donovan, the former US secretary of housing and urban de-

velopment, keeps a sponge in the shape of the Netherlands in the

family bathroom of his home. It reminds him of how his thinking
about resilience has evolved.
When Donovan served as commissioner of the New York City De-
partment of Housing Preservation and Development, his focus was
largely (and necessarily) on fundamental issues of affordable housing
development: adherence to regulations and codes, ensuring proper
standards for structure and infrastructure. His thinking, in other
words, ran more or less along the lines of development financing and
risk management.
When he became HUD secretary in 2009, Donovan began to
think more broadly. Soon after taking the job, he traveled with Janet
Napolitano, then secretary of homeland security, to New Orleans.
There, he saw how badly the recovery was going, three and a half
years after the storm. Some 30,000 families, displaced by Katrina,
were still living in temporary housing, and one reason was that the
government's response had been so ineffective. The physical condi-
dons were bad enough. The social situation was worse—for the indi-
viduals affected, the city, the economy, and the nation as a whole. "I

was so angry after that trip," Donovan says.l

279
 280 | THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND CONCLUSION: REALIZING THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND | 281

In March 2009, he gained further awareness of the ways in which But I have also become convinced that the resilience dividend is real
a disruption can affect people and their communities. He visited Ce- and achievable, and provides great opportunities to improve lives and
dar Rapids, Iowa, which had also experienced severe flooding just a livelihoods in the good times as well.
year earlier. Donovan trudged through neighborhoods and talked However, once we agree that resilience building is essential, there
with homeowners who were facing agonizing choices about whether certainly will be disagreement about how to go about it—where we
to repair or rebuild, sell out, leave the neighborhood, or even depart should focus our energy and how we should allocate our resources. We
the city. His experiences helped him "understand our vulnerability in can't fix everything. Should we focus on reducing vulnerabilities so as
a fundamentally different way." to reduce risk? And, if so, which ones? In what order? Or should we
Then came a revelation. Donovan traveled with his family to the put more energy into building up our response capabilities, knowing
Netherlands and, with Henk Ovink as guide, toured The Hague, Rot- that bad things will undoubtedly happen and we must be prepared?
terdam, Amsterdam, and the country's coasts and waterways. Dono- Or perhaps we should leap right to innovation and revitalization, in
van inspected the measures the Dutch have taken to deal with the hopes that new activity will drive out old vulnerabilities.
challenge of water—including the elements of the audacious Delta All three phases of resilience building are important, but our ten-
Works, designed to withstand a 10,000-year flood. More important, dency is to focus attention most keenly on response. That's because
he came to understand that the Dutch had developed a fundamen- we can't ignore a disruption. We must respond to a crisis and deal
tally different social approach to living with water—and to disruption with disaster. We have little choice.
in general. Resilience, he realized, could become "part of a culture," It's more difficult, in many ways, to focus on increasing readiness
not just the responsibility of experts and professionals or a matter of or on developing a path to revitalization. That's partly because there is
structures and protections. Resilience could be about the "way you less urgency to act in relatively stable times, when the stresses are ac-
live." Donovan brought the sponge home as a kind of talisman of a customed and the shocks are small and manageable. It's also because
certain view of resilience: that it is both a technical and social concept. all the entities that must be involved—individuals, organizations,
My own thinking about resilience has also evolved—through my communities, and cities—are complex and diverse. They all have dif-
early work with the West Philadelphia community when I was presi- fering points of view, assets and vulnerabilities, goals and aspirations,
dent of Penn, my involvement in New Orleans in the years after Ka- and these elements can come into conflict because considerations of
trina, my sendce as cochair of the NYS2100 Commission, and, of complex human concerns come into play, including politics, eth-
course, through our many resilience-focused endeavors at The Rocke- ics, and faith. Simply put, it is difficult for us as individuals, and for
feller Foundation, including the ACCCRN, Rebuild by Design, and groups as well, to focus on preparing for bad things that might hap-
100 Resilient Cities initiatives. I believe that building resilience is of pen when it seems, at the moment, that things are going pretty well.
paramount importance today, especially as we see that the problems But taking action before a disruption occurs is essential to resil-
of the world are growing increasingly threatening. In report after re- ience building. If we do not assess our situations when life is calm,
port, study after study, in domain after domain, we learn about the if we do not take actions and commit resources to reduce our vul-
challenges facing us in the years ahead, from the deleterious effects of nerabilities and potential threats when things are relatively stable, we
climate change on human health to the threats of breakdown in po- will always be in a reactive mode—acting only after things have gone
litical governance to the explosive social dynamics of fast-populating wrong. Yes, it may be easier to mobilize people and to martial re-
cities to the vulnerabilities of aging and inadequate infrastructure. sources in the wake of a crisis, but there are at least two problems
 282 | THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND CONCLUSION: REALIZING THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND | 283

with the reactive approach to resilience building. First, you may be difficulty is that there is often a significant disconnect between how
forced into actions that might not necessarily be optimal—such as large a threat actually is and how strongly people feel about it. He
constructing a new building when an existing one could have been cites the work of Peter Sandman, an expert in risk communication,
made more able to withstand a disruption. Second, the cost is all who refers to the "incredibly low correlation" between the scale of a
higher to take action postcrisis than it is when relief and recovery are hazard and what he calls peoples "outrage" toward it.2 In the United
not part of the agenda. By cost, I of course refer to the toll crisis takes States, for example, people see terrorism as a grave threat although it
on human beings and social cohesion, as well as on tangible assets. claims far fewer lives than do commonplace disruptions like car acci-
Determining what actions to take in noncrisis times—to articulate dents. When people feel great outrage about a very real threat, Sand-
the points of conflict, develop alternatives and solutions, and make man says, they are most likely to commit to taking action. That is one
decisions about trade-ofFs—almost always requires a process that is reason it so often takes a crisis to catalyze change and improvement.
inclusive and integrated. The trade-offs must be assessed and difficult Feeling runs high. The need is obvious. The urgency is there.
questions must be raised. Are some choices better or more import- This phenomenon has long been studied by psychologists and so-
ant for building resilience than others? Can we articulate resilience- cial scientists. Gustave Le Bon, a French sociologist working in the
building priorities as we make individual and collective choices? late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, studied why groups of
An inclusive process involves a wide range of stakeholders engag- people—or, in his parlance, "crowds"—come to place greater or lesser
ing in the conversation about tensions and trade-ofFs. It is essential importance on certain types of disruptive events. It is not the facts of
to include individuals, groups, or organizations that are particularly the crisis that "strike the popular imagination," he writes, "but the
vulnerable—such as the socially marginalized and those with few way in which they take place and are brought under notice. A star-
assets—because they typically suffer the most intense impacts of di- tling and very clear image" is key, he says, as are dramatic moments.
sasters or crises. When numerous people and groups are involved "A hundred petty crimes or petty accidents will not strike the imagi-
and the trade-offs are complex, the process can often be lengthy and nation of crowds in the least, whereas a single great crime or a single
sometimes messy. Be that as it may, the process can be navigated and great accident will profoundly impress them, even though the results
superb results can be obtained, as I hope I have demonstrated with be infinitely less disastrous than those of the hundred small accidents
the many stories in this book. put together."3 This is certainly one reason the Halifax explosion had
such a lasting impact on that city and why images of the airplanes
NECESSARILY, SUCH A PROCESS will and should include a lot of striking the Twin Towers have become iconic.
diversity—of people, opinions, and, as a result, thinking styles. So, There are many cognitive biases at play as we humans go about
as I ve discussed, it's important that the process be well managed in making decisions in circumstances involving disruption, risk, and un-
order to avoid the disarray that can come from an abundance of ap- certainty. Perhaps the most pertinent to our discussion of anticipating
preaches and to ensure that ideas are well synthesized and that you the effects of a potential disruption is the availability heuristic, first pos-
arrive at integrated solutions. ited by cognitive psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in
Michael Berkowitz, head of The Rockefeller Foundation's 100 Re- 1973. When estimating future outcomes or, more generally, thinking
silient Cities initiative, is well aware of the complications involved about frequency and probability, "the ease with which instances or as-
in influencing how people think and how communities take action sociations could be brought to mind"—that is, their cognitive availabil-
with regard to resilience, and he says that one of the main areas of ity—has a significant effect on our estimations and leads to systematic
 284 | THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND CONCLUSION: REALIZING THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND | 285

biases," the psychologists write.4 For instance, if you were trying to

guess whether the driver of a pickup truck in front of you were a man LIVING IN THE FORELOOP

or a woman, frequency would play an important role: How many times Certainly some elements of the "improvement-by-crisis" approach do
do you recall having seen men at the wheel of similar trucks in com- work—that is largely how the National Transportation Safety Board
parison to how many women you've seen driving them? Salience, too, has dramatically improved the safety of air travel over the years—but
will affect your judgment—that is, how prominent in your awareness is hardly the optimal, most productive, or most salutary way to live.
is some aspect of the estimation? For example, you might recendy have It is also incredibly costly, in both financial and human terms, and
seen an advertisement for that brand of truck. The availability heuristic, drains resources away from more productive endeavors. According to
therefore, is useful because it facilitates rapid assessments in reasoi the World Bank, for example, about 20 percent of all humanitarian
simple situations, even though it is not integrated with statistics, data, aid is spent on responding to disaster, while less than 1 percent is
and baseline probabilities (such as, in this case, the total number of spent on preventive measures that could have kept disruption from
male and female truck drivers or owners). becoming disaster in the first place.6
But for unique, complex, or hard to imagine predictions, accord- Maybe we could tolerate this approach to threats in the past—
ing to Kahneman and Tversky, the availability heuristic can be pow- lurching from disruption to disruption, weathering crises, making
erfully disadvantageous. "Many of the events whose likelihood people slow, incremental improvements to reduce our vulnerabilities—but
wish to evaluate depend on several interrelated factors. Yet it is ex- today the disruptions are too varied and too great, too frequent and
ceedingly difficult for the human mind to apprehend sequences of too severe, too interconnected and too wide-ranging to continue
variations of several interacting factors." So, the authors suggest, "in this way. The risks are too great and the costs too high. At the same
evaluating the probability of complex events only the simplest and time, we are much more aware of our vulnerabilities than ever before
most available scenarios are likely to be considered. In particular, peo- and have much more knowledge and expertise about how to miti-
pie will tend to produce scenarios in which many factors do not vary gate threats, how to make ourselves and our institutions stronger and
at all, only the most obvious variations take place, and interacting more adaptive to any kind of challenge (seen and unforeseen), and
changes are rare."5 therefore have tremendous capacity to make change—but much of it
In the context of resilience, then, it is very hard for us to imagine, is, as yet, untapped.
and nearly impossible to predict, how a disruption will play out and To proactively build resilience—without waiting for disaster to
what a disaster might look like. This is one reason it is so difficult to push us into it—we need to live, as much as we possibly can, in the
get people to focus on things that might go wrong or to make deci- foreloop of the adaptive cycle. You may remember that the adaptive
sions about how to deal with threats, especially when they involve cycle, the concept that comes from systems theory (particularly as ap-
multiple vulnerabilities and multiple stakeholders. That's why it's im- plied to ecological systems), has four phases and is often described as
portant to move as swiftly as possible in the revitalization process. a loop. The first two phases—rapid growth and conservation—make
Because the disruption and its effects are highly available, it is more up the foreloop. The third and fourth phases—release and reorgani-
likely that people will be able to focus on them and be willing to de- zation—constitute the backloop. Release has the eflFect of rattling the
vote energy to looking for solutions. If you wait too long, something status quo and presenting an opportunity for change.
else will come along and overshadow the availability of the disruption. Living in the foreloop simply means that we spend as much time
Never let a good crisis go to waste. as possible in the periods of growth and conservation and as little
286 | THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND CONCLUSION: REALIZING THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND | 287

time as possible in the release and reorganization phases. Buildii The effects of Barcelona's work were immediate, long-lasting,

resilience enables us to do that by improving our readiness and re- and dramatic. The infrastructural work created tens of thousands of

sponsiveness. Living in the foreloop also implies, and this is a such that unemployment dropped from 18.4 percent in Octo-
point, that we take control of when and how we respond to a release. ber 1986 to 9.6 percent in August 1992. Although many of those
or disruption. jobs were specific to construction work before the games, more than
What's more, when we develop greater resilience, we may even de- 20,000 people found permanent employment as a direct result ofin-
liberately create disruptions to force positive change. Such deliberate, vestments made for the event."
positively intended disruptions are simply well-calculated risks_the Since the Olympic Games, Barcelona has become an enterprising
kind of planned and intentional risks that individuals, companies, or- and attractive European city. According to the IOC, Twenty years
ganizations, cities, and even countries have always taken to grow, im- on, Barcelona was the 12th most popular city destination in the
prove, and realize the great benefit that can come with revitalization world and was ranked 5th amongst European cities."12 In 1990 Bar-
and transformation. celona welcomed about 2 million tourists; in 2012, nearly 7.5 million
For example, a city takes a deliberate risk when it hosts an Olym- people visited the city.13 And, in a ranking of the business confidence
pic Games, because it disrupts the normal functioning of the place in Barcelona—"as reflected by the willingness of foreign companies
but can bring about positive social change; Barcelona, the capital city to establish there (a combination of attractiveness, availability of ser-
of Catalonia, Spain, is often cited as the most positive example of vices, workers, market, and competitiveness) improved notably in the
this. Located on the northwest coast of the Mediterranean Sea, the aftermath of the Games"—the city jumped from 11th in 1990 to 6th
city hosted the 1992 summer games and more than two decades later in2001.14
is still reaping the dividends. The public health of the nation and its standing as an athletic
Barcelona deliberately set out to leverage the games to create an power were improved. By 1995, more than half of the Spanish popu-
''urban transformation," as a 2002 report declares. Barcelona pro- lation engaged in some kind of sport at least once a week, an increase
ceeded with "institutional unity" and secured "mixed public-private of 15 percent from 1983.15 The 1992 Olympic Games have often
funding" following a process that was inclusive, integrated, and an- been credited with Spain's current reign in several sports.16 Spain is

imated by a shared vision of widespread, long-term positive change.7 home to two powerhouse, profitable soccer clubs. Real Madrid and
In preparation for the games, Barcelona devoted more than 85 FC Barcelona, and its national team won the World Cup in 2010
percent of its total spending to infrastructural and facility improve- (although they failed to advance in 2014). Rafael Nadal, the world's
ments, but only 9 percent of that total went to athletic facilities. Be- number 1 ranked tennis player as of this writing, was born and lives
tween 1986—when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on the island ofMajorca, just off the coast of Barcelona.
selected Barcelona—and 1992, the city built new roads and sewage Of course, there were unintended consequences. A 2014 docu-

systems, and increased green and beach areas by 78 percent.8 New res- mentary. Bye Bye Barcelona, questions whether Barcelonas rampant

idential housing was built for the Olympic Village and then opened tourism has taken away from the city's cultural heritage and identity.17
up for commercial sale after the games.9 Hotel capacity was increased And unemployment in Barcelona has since risen to 21.74 percent.18

by 38 percent.10 Barcelona saw the Olympics as an opportunity to But, unlike many cities that bring on the intentional disruption
strengthen the entire city for the long term, not just spruce it up for of the Olympics, Barcelona did so planning for the long-term, mak-
the games to realize a short-term gain. ing investments and improvements that would develop the city for
 288 | THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND CONCLUSION: REALIZING THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND | 289

continued growth and prosperity, not for a one-ofF, month-1 intends to increase its use of'onske renewable energy 600% by 2020.
event. And, given the obvious improvements to the city and the According to one Walmart executive, that will enable the company to
country's well-being after the games, although things aren't perfect, keep "stores up and running no matter how bad the weather is or who
it raises the question: how would Barcelona be faring had it not taken else might be shut down. 23
the risk? Coca-Cola, too, is thinking hard about the management of im-
portant resources, in particular its products key ingredient: water. To-
BUSINESSES LIKEWISE TAKE intentional, foreloop risks by launchii day, the company sells nearly two billion bottles of Coke every day
new products or entering new markets that may disrupt their oper- and has plans to double its business by the year 2020.24 To accom-
ations, cause shifts in relationships, put a burden on finances, but, plish this goal, Muhtar Kent, chair and CEO, knows that resilience
more importandy, bring opportunity for growth and improvement. must be at the forefront of the company's thinking. In some corner
Andrew Wmston, a business strategy expert, suggests that taking of the world," he says, "there is always an external disruption that can
risks is especially important for businesses today, given the world's have bearing on our business."25
:'megachallenges," including climate change, urbanization and demo- The central component ofCoca-Cola's resilience and sustainability
graphic shifts, commodity price increases, limits on resources, and the strategy necessarily focuses on water stewardship, with an ambitious
possibility of financial collapse.19 He argues that they call for a funda- goal of the company becoming "water neutral" by 2020. As part of
mentally different strategy that focuses on building resilience. this mission, Coca-Cola has conducted some four hundred commu-
An extreme world calls for extreme change," Wlnston writes, and nity water-focused projects in ninety-four countries, partnering with
he suggests that businesses find new ways to deal with megachallenges groups including the Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund,
by asking what he calls "heretical questions." These should chal- CARE, USAID, and local government groups.
lenge the most fundamental strategic and operating assumptions and Additionally, Coca-Cola has embarked on a long-term partner-
should be framed in the light of specific global challenges. Winston ship for clean water worldwide with world-renowned innovator Dean
cites the example of Nike, which, he says, asked "whether it would Kamen, founder of DEKA R&D, developer of the Segway, and in-
be possible to dye clothes—a very water-intensive process—without ventor of a water purification system called Slingshot. This new tech-
water. 20 The question was asked in the context of the very real threat nology can filter and purify water from any source —including rivers,
of water shortages, or lack of access to water, especially in facilities in oceans, and even, amazingly, sewage—so that it is potable. One
developing countries. If the threat materialized and Nike had devel- Slingshot filtering unit—using less electricity per hour than an ordi-
oped a waterless dying system, then the water stoppage would not nary hairdryer—can produce eight hundred liters of clean water daily,
constitute a disruption, making the company far more resilient. which is enough water to meet the needs of three hundred people. In
Companies are also seeking to make "dramatic improvements in 2013, one hundred Slingshot units were placed in schools and health
operational efficiency and cuts in material and energy use, waste, and facilities in countries throughout Africa and Latin America.
carbon emissions," Wlnston writes, so they can "become much more Slingshot may well be a successful water filtration technology for
flexible and antifragile."21 ("Andfragile" is Nassim Taleb's term to de- rural areas. It can be connected to a local power grid or to any num-
fine entities that "gain from disorder."22) This is why companies are ber of other types of energy sources, including batteries or solar cells.
seeking to develop and manage their own sources of energy and in- Another source of power could be an electric generator developed by
crease their use of renewable energy sources. Walmart, for example, DEKA R&D that runs on biogas, such as methane, which can often
 290 | THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND CONCLUSION: REALIZING THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND | 291

be conveniently sourced from nearby waste facilities. This will un- transformation of the entire company. This concept is well known in
doubtedly help Coca-Cola and its partners reach their goal of deliv- business, and the example of Apple is often cited. It kept its computer
ering 100 million liters of clean drinking water to 45,000 people in business growing while starting up its iPod and iPhone initiatives,
twenty countries by 2015.26 which eventually became the core of the company without destabiliz-
For Kent, these initiatives relate directly to the economic viabilit ing the business.31
of the company's supply chain and its customers that span the globe. Individuals, like cities and business, regularly take risks that bring
'The multinational corporation will always have a role to play in driv- with them disruptions—such as moving to a new city, committing to
ing sustainable economic development," he says.27 an innovative project, or taking on a new job—but that enable them to
In addition to the kind of initiatives that companies such as grow and thrive and be more resilient in the face of still more challenges.
Walmart and Coca-Cola are pursuing, Andrew Wlnston also suggests Pauline Manguru, for example, who lives in the Nairobi commu-
that a large industry is now in the making, one that will create and nity of Kambi Moto, took what for her was an enormous risk sev-
commercialize products and services that help customers of all kinds era! years ago. She describes herself as a person who used to spend
be more efficient, less susceptible to disruptions from the worlds her time doing nothing more than "cutting vegetables on the street.
megachallenges, and less dependent on nonrenewable energy sources She had little education and not much work experience. Her friends
over which they have no control. The Economist Intelligence Unit, called her "little Pauline," and she says she was too shy to speak En-
for example, found that 63 percent of the companies it polled saw glish with strangers. Fed up with her situation, and with children to
opportunities to generate value from disaster risk reduction.28 Mori look after, Pauline took what seemed to her like a big risk at the time:
Building, a privately held construction company, has successfully in- she joined the Kambi Moto savings group.
vested in earthquake-resistant housing developments in Japan, where She then created a series of deliberate disruptions to her life that
earthquake resistance has become the most important criterion for 92 have transformed her. She learned organizational skills and took on a
percent of companies choosing new offices.29 leadership role with the savings group, eventually serving as treasurer
But efficiency and self-reliance alone will not likely produce and chair. She became so aware of the vulnerabilities of living on land
growth. "The principles of resilient systems include diversity," and, without ownership that she was finally able to summon the courage
to achieve that, Wlnston argues that companies should pursue a to speak up, protest before the city council, and help improve the
near-religious avoidance of risk for the vast majority of the business, community's integration with the city. She was able to save enough
coupled with extreme risk taking with pilot programs or small parts money to finance the building of a two-story home and looks fonvard
of the enterprise."30 to the day when she can add a third.
Pauline has worked as a Muungano representative and mentor
THIS BRINGS US TO A REFINEMENT of the concept of living in the for more than a decade, offering guidance and support to other slum
foreloop: while the larger system (the company or the city as a whole) dwellers in her neighborhood and around the country. Her impact
chugs along in the growth and conservation phases, small parts of the even extends beyond the borders of Kenya. In September 2012, Pau-
system (a unit or project) can create a disruption that will provoke line flew to the World Urban Forum in Naples, Italy, and shared the
change and do so without destabilizing the entire system or causing stage with SDI president Jockin Arputham, as well as various may-
it to lose its ability to self-regulate. As the smaller element grows, it ors and ministers, participating on a panel about inclusive urban
too will move into the conservation phase, perhaps resulting in the governance.32
292 [ THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND CONCLUSION: REALIZING THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND | 293

By taking on a series of deliberate disruptions, Pauline has grown

so that she is hardly recognizable to herself and her friends. "I have Disruptions have lesser impact,
recovery is faster, and. opportunities arise
seen I m a leader," says Pauline. Her friends say she's now the "Pauline
Entity invests
who can fight for something, who can own something. The Pauline in resilience
who can make people come together with one idea and a dream that building
THE
becomes a reality."33 RESILIENCE
DIVIDEND
Barcelona, Nike, Pauline—they have all sought to spend as much
THE
of their time as possible in the foreloop—taking deliberate risks and
RESILIENCE
Entity
controlling disruption (a.k.a. release) as skillfully as possible—where DEFICIT
invests little
they can best reap the resilience dividend. in resilience
building

THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND Disruptions have greater impact,

recovery takes longer, and options are reduced

Building resilience creates two aspects of benefits: it enables individu-

Time
als, communities, and organizations to better withstand a disruption
more effectively, and it enables them to improve their current systems Figure C.l. The Resilience Dividend
and situations. But it also enables them to build new relationships,
take on new endeavors and initiatives, and reach out for new oppor-
tunities, ones that may never have been imagined before. This is the and other supplies for the thousands of neighborhood residents af-
resilience dividend. fected by the flooding.34
We can see how resilience pays dividends in many ways and situa- Fairway, however, did business in a nineteenth-century warehouse
tions—for example, the difference between how well two large retail building, which was seriously flooded in the storm. Fairway had to
stores fared during and after Superstorm Sandy. Fairway, a supermar- close its doors during the storm and did not reopen. It finally had to
ket, and Ikea, the household goods supplier, occupy large buildings gut the building, renovate, and restock its entire inventory—a pro-
in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn and are situated within a stone's cess that took four months. Fairway, a nearly $1 billion company, was
throw of the bay and one another. The Ikea store, which opened in able to survive the loss, although a smaller operation might well have
2008, was built to be resilient. It was constructed on pilings, with a failed. However, the hit was significant to the company as well as to
ground floor garage and the show floors and inventory on the upper the neighborhood, where it is the only full-service grocery store. Fair-
floors; the building also has an emergency generator. When the storm way had not made itself more resilient, especially necessary because it
hit, the Ikea building was not unaffected. Its elevators ceased to func- was in an old building.
tion when city power went out, some of its outside benches were torn Ikea, however, reaped the resilience dividend: its business was only
away, and the parking lot was awash with floodwater and debris. But briefly disrupted by the storm and it took advantage of a new oppor-
the store recovered quickly and reopened for business after the storm, tunity—it strengthened its neighborhood connections by taking on
and soon after it became headquarters for FEMA representatives as a new and important role in the relief efforts. It can be difficult for a
well as a neighborhood hub for the distribution of food, clothing, chain retailer to integrate itself into a community because ownership
294 | THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND CONCLUSION: REALIZING THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND | 295

is distant, employees may not live in the area, and the company will realized a resilience dividend for itself, the people of a community
have protocols for the way it engages with community activities. Ikea where it was located, and the local ecosystem, as well.
came into a different and improved relationship with its communii Water is essential to SABMiller's operations, and if supply is
largely because of its resilience-building efforts. By contrast, Fail interrupted or the cost of supply varies, it can seriously affect its
lost business and lost its connection with the neighborhood durii business. In Bogota, Colombia, SABMiller's brewery purchases wa-
a critical time.35 (A telling statistic: 25 percent of businesses do not ter from a local utility and found that the cost of water was rising
reopen at all after a major disaster.36) precipitously. What was happening? SABMiller discovered that the
Resilience can also pay a great dividend in noncrisis situations_ utility's cost of water treatment was going up because the amount
that is, when we are living in the foreloop. It can, for example, create a of sediment in its river source was increasing as the result of the

competitive advantage for a company or a city. This is what happened actions of upstream dairy farmers who were clearing land so their
in Pune, India, a city that has made a considerable investment in re- cows could graze. The process disrupted the river banks and freed
silience building in the past several years. The city is highly aware of soil, which traveled downstream. The situation could easily have led
the chronic stresses and vulnerabilities that can disrupt the operations to a crisis—pressure on the utility and the potential loss of a major
of large companies that do business in India, including interruptions local business for Bogota.
to basic services such as electric power and transportation, as well as SABMilld joined with the water utility and the Nature Conser-
an unreliable supply of educated, committed workers. Pane has taken vancy to support and underwrite the dairy farmers in adopting new
many actions to build its resilience, including improvements to its practices—specifically purchasing higher-producing cows, keeping
transportation and utility systems and the integration of government smaller herds, and not disturbing vegetation on the riverbanks—in
and citizen groups—and not as a direct result of an acute crisis or di- return for the farmers' commitment to preserve their natural areas for
saster. Its degree of social cohesion is high. the long term. Through this investment in watershed protection, the
Pune realized the dividend on this investment in resilience when water utility saved $4 million a year. SABMiller saved money on wa-
Deutsche Bank chose to locate a large operations center there rather ter purchase. The dairy farmers developed more efficient farms. The
than in any of the several other Indian cities it had considered. The ecology of the river system was improved.
bank's leaders could clearly see that it would benefit from Pane's ap- The potential for achieving a resilience dividend should be an im-
proach to resilience building. Disruptions were less likely to occur portant factor in the plans and investments we consider in the fore-
and, if they did, would be less likely to lead to dysfunction and dif- loop. Ideally, any action we take to build resilience will do more than
ficult recovery. For Pune, the resilience dividend manifests in the just reduce a vulnerability or mitigate a threat—it will also bring ben-
form of an increase in jobs, greater opportunities for partnerships, efit to multiple groups in the form of economic, social, and infra-
a boost to its international reputation, and an enhanced sense of structure gains. We saw how the investment in the Metro system in
place—as a city that is attractive to sophisticated, world-class business Medellin helped reduce violence, created new economic opportuni-
organizations. ties, increased social cohesion, and greatly enhanced the city's sense of
The resilience dividend can bring benefits that accrue to multi- itself as a model of resilience building for Latin America and beyond.
pie groups within a system—just as Ikea's dividend was shared with The city has built its resilience and is now reaping the dividends.
the neighborhood—and can result in wonderfully unexpected results. The resilience dividend not only enables people and communities
The global brewing and beverage company SABMiller, for example, to rebound faster from disasters or deal with stresses; it spurs economic
 296 | THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND CONCLUSION: REALIZING THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND [ 297

development, job creation, environmental sustainability, and social He realized that the development would have an enormous impact
cohesion. It brings benefit to people, organizations, and communities on the neighborhood—how people interacted, how they got to work,
when things are going right as well as when they go wrong. their sense of the place—and he was awakened to the impact of the
built environment on social cohesion and the effect of social cohesion
on resilience. As a result, he founded a new organization, Public Ar-
WHAT WE CAN Do chitecture, devoted to design for the sake of social function. He went
Finally, I want to focus on the contributions that we—as individuals, further, creating The 1% Program, the goal of which is to encourage
as members or leaders of organizations, and as citizens of a commu- designers and architects around the country to give at least 1 percent
nity and a society—can make to the process of resilience building and of their time—twenty hours a year—to pro bono work that will help
achieving the resilience dividend. Everywhere I look, I see people and "build cities and communities, or alter them, so that the design of
groups engaged in actions and activities, initiatives and programs, the built environment can be a catalyst for social change," as Peterson

that build resilience in some way, although they may not think of or puts it.37 Today, more than 1,300 firms in the United States donate
talk about it in that way. They do so in one or more of the multiple more than $50 million in design services every year. Peterson hopes to
roles that we all play—as members of families, institutions and busi- keep raising awareness, changing the conversation in the design com-
nesses, neighborhoods and communities, cultures and nations. They munity about how best to create designs that achieve resilient, social,

are champions of resilience, and I am constantly impressed by the and infrastructural outcomes, without the need for a disruption or
impact they can have. crisis to catalyze thinking and drive action. An individual, a practice,
I think, for example, of Stefania, Adriana Restrepo's teenage and a whole discipline—contributing to our understanding and the
daughter living in the San Javier neighborhood of Medellin. She got development of resilience.
involved in a program designed to reduce the threat of violence in her My colleague Peter Madonia and his family have owned a bakery
city. She and other teens visited a prison in Medellin to meet with in the Bronx for nearly a hundred years. When Peter first began run-
inmates and see for themselves just where a life of violence and crime ning its operations, he quickly realized the lessons of diversity, adap-
would lead. Stefania was so affected by the potential to steer kids tive capacity, and redundancy, installing a second (smaller) oven and
away from drug trafficking and street crime that she traveled to Brazil training his staff so they could handle any one of the key tasks of the
as an ambassador for the program to discuss how to dissuade kids business in case of equipment failure or if an employee was unavail-
from engaging in criminal activities. Stefania's engagement, and the able. For Peter, resilience building was intuitive. "You run a business,
work of the program, not only helps lessen the threat of youths get- he says, "and your livelihood depends on it. The livelihoods of the
ting involved with crime, it creates new opportunities for them and people who work for you depend on it, too. And you start to think,
integrates them with groups across the city. An individual, a group, a OK, what happens ify'w A family business whose output contributes
program, a city, and a country—all are involved in resilience building. to food security throughout the region: thinking about resilience.
John Peterson is an architect in San Francisco who built a suc-
cessful private practice focused on what he thinks of as "design for I FIND THAT ONCE YOU EMBRACE the concepts of resilience, they be-
designs sake." Then he won a project to design a neighborhood de- come relevant in almost every aspect of your life. As your understand-
velopment that would include a grocery store, a library, and housing. ing increases, you reach a threshold and see what a disproportionately
298 | THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND CONCLUSION: REALIZING THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND | 299

large role disruption plays in our lives. As I write, the worldwide news that the region could, in the long-term, face losses of 2-3 percent of

is filled with accounts of air and sea disasters, disease outbreaks, polit- the area's $634 billion GDP from wind, sea-level rise, and storm surge
ical unrest, cyber threats, food and energy insecurities, mass violence, alone, but that a $50 billion upfront investment in coastal infrastruc-
business failure, and natural calamities. Many of these disruptions ture improvements of both the hard and soft variety—between now
were foreseeable and could have been prevented or their effects re- and 2050—could avert future losses of up to $135 billion.40 Although
duced. What if we could reduce the incidence of disruption by even the necessary initiatives would entail disruption, it would be deliberate,
a fraction? We could shift our attention away from the immediate it would be known, and it would result in a resilience dividend: new
demands of responding to crisis and to the more positive efforts of opportunities and benefits.
readiness and revitalization. They took the information to communities throughout four states,
Although some disruption can create positive change, how much hosting Blue Ribbon Resilient Communities forums that were open
unintended disruption do we need to add to our knowledge and build to local leaders, community representatives, and concerned citizens.
our resilience? Much less than we now live with. "All of the conversations we had with our communities," Williams

Whats more, intentional disruption—the kind that does not create says, "began by talking about shared values—enhanced prosperity,
crisis or disaster and that I am advocating for—is not a smooth or easy safety, quality of life."41 Even so, he says, it was a "tough dialogue, be-
path. There will be plenty of struggle and anxiety as we deliberately take cause habits would have to change and livelihoods would be affected.
on the thorny challenges of new endeavors. Just ask the executives and As a result of the panels, each of the eleven communities that par-

engineers at BMW, who set themselves the challenge of developing—in ticipated developed its own set of values and prioritized solutions for
just thirty-eight months—a super-lightweight, electric-powered vehicle the threats they faced, while the Wetlands Foundation released a sum-
that would meet social, political, and regulatory demands and would mary report outlining five recommendations for building resilience
act as a standard for a whole new class of vehicles. It was a deliberate along the Gulf Coast.42 Developing the report, conducting the pan-
disruption taken in advance of the crisis that is surely coming as the de- els, and holding conversations with stakeholders across the region was
mand for cars skyrockets in developing countries and the pressures on a process of two years. "The hardest thing in the world, Williams
reducing emissions increase with equal urgency. According to the leader concludes, "is to be proactive.
of the project, Carsten Breitfeld, there were "nights when we went to Any of the people I have featured in this book would agree. Dr. De-
bed not sure how to go forward."39 sai in Surat, who, with her colleagues, seeks to get ahead of climate-re-
Or ask JefF Williams, manager of corporate environmental initia- lated public health problems. Patrick Otellini and Rob Dudgeon and
tives for Entergy, the big utility, about the process the company en- so many others in San Francisco who are working against time to make
gaged in to develop a way to help ensure the economic viability of the the city more resilient in the face of multiple threats—especially the
communities the company serves along the Gulf Coast. To understand earthquake that is inevitable. Juliana Rotich, who, through Uchaguzi,
the vulnerabilities, risks, and assets of the communities they served the information-mapping platform her company Ushahidi has devel-
throughout the region, Entergy partnered with America's Wedand oped, hopes to make elections safer and fairer worldwide.
Foundation to fund and execute a comprehensive study and analysis of And ask yourself: What have I done to build resilience for the peo-
some seventy-seven counties and eight hundred zip codes. They found pie and places I care about? What more can I do?
300 | THE RESILIENCE DIVIDEND

There is no ultimate or end state of resilience. But, by workii

together to build resilience to the greatest degree possible, we can te-
duce our reliance on crisis as a driver of change and, instead, deliber- <^=i

ately take the future into our own hands—for the well-being of our
families, our communities, our cities, and, indeed, the planet we all
share. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is the culmination of the contributions of many people, not only
to the book itself—an undertaking of some three years' duration—but also to
the comprehensive work on resilience at The Rockefeller Foundation over the
last decade. The book has my name on the cover, but it is truly the result of
the efforts of hundreds of individuals and institutions, in many domains and
disciplines, and in countries around the world. Individually, and through col-
laborauons and partnerships, we are all working to deepen our understanding
of resilience and to improve its practices and extend them into new fields and
initiatives. There is still a great deal of research, analysis, and application to
be done, however, so I am heartened that so many have chosen to join the

effort of building resilience for ourselves, our institutions, our communities,

and our societies. I am grateful for the knowledge, perspective, time, energy,

and experience that I have been able to draw upon as we have developed this
book. People have responded with incredible grace and enthusiasm to our
requests for knowledge and assistance. Indeed, I feel that we have created a
community around this endeavor, one that I hope will only gain strength and
add new members as the book takes its place in the world. Here, I offer my
heartfelt thanks and deep gratitude to those who made direct contributions
to the book. In addition, I want to acknowledge the many people who have
influenced resilience thinking and practice more generally but who are too
numerous to name individually.
My thanks to:

THOSE WHO GENEROUSLY AGREED TO BE INTERVIEWED during

the research phase of the book. Some two hundred people, in countries

301