Advancing climate resilience through FM Approvals’ expertise

Natural hazards are placing increasing demands on the built environment. In 2025, secondary perils (including wildfires, severe convective storms and floods) accounted for a record 92% of global insured natural catastrophe losses, totaling US$107 billion.¹ These events are no longer isolated or infrequent. They are reshaping how stakeholders around the world think about building performance, assess exposure to new vulnerabilities, and view long-standing design parameters.

Designing climate resilient buildings requires engineering that regularly evolves to outpace the changing threats of flood, wind, fire, and other hazards. As research findings emerge and real-world events reveal how buildings perform under severe conditions, the engineering guidance and loss prevention solutions used to keep facilities resilient must evolve as well.

FM and FM Approvals both have significant, but distinct roles in the process. While distinct, the work of both FM and FM Approvals can inform those responsible for constructing new, climate-resilient buildings or supplementing existing buildings to make them more robust without having to rebuild.

FM’s engineering and research function studies real-world property losses and implements research with findings that are foundational to loss prevention recommendations for industrial and commercial facilities.

FM Approvals independently tests and certifies loss prevention products and systems from manufacturers around the world to determine which ones perform as expected under the toughest conditions and can bear the FM APPROVED mark that signifies quality and technical integrity. The FM Approved products that successfully complete the certification process are listed in the Approval Guide.

FM and FM Approvals learn from real-world property losses

Historical property losses provide insight into how buildings perform under actual hazard conditions. Before significant wind, hail, flood or fire events, FM field engineers investigate what could fail under these conditions. These engineers evaluate whether the building is properly designed for the expected hazard, if tested and certified loss prevention solutions are present and installed properly, and whether the facility is prepared for conditions that are likely to occur at the location.

FM field engineers can also examine whether the hazard itself has changed in a way that current engineering assumptions and FM Approvals examination standards no longer fully capture, thus prompting a look at potential updates or modifications. The objective is not simply to understand an individual loss, but to determine broader engineering implications and lessons that can contribute to the advancement of worldwide property loss prevention practices.

Loss findings become engineering data

Loss investigations do not end with a report. The findings are combined with meteorological research, field observations, claims experience, and technical analysis to determine whether FM's recommendations around a particular hazard should formally evolve.

Rather than relying solely on historical design assumptions, FM continually evaluates whether new information warrants updates to resources such as FM’s natural hazard maps—covering natural disaster risks such as floods, earthquakes, hail and wind—or engineering and design guidance found in FM property loss prevention data sheets.

Better engineering insights lead to improved standards

This research then informs FM Approvals’ examination standards. When loss investigations identify failure modes or performance limitations that existing testing does not adequately address, FM Approvals reevaluates its standards to determine whether testing protocols should change in any way that will better reflect real-world conditions and better evaluate product performance. As standards evolve, manufacturers may design products and assemblies to satisfy higher performance requirements. This process encourages continuous improvement across industries that design, manufacture, and distribute products meant to make the building envelope resilient to climate threats.

Improved standards lead to more resilient building systems

One of FM Approvals' key differentiators is its certification of complete building assemblies rather than only the individual components. A roof membrane, insulation, fasteners, cover board and roof deck may each perform well independently. However, the reality is buildings encounter wind, hail and fire as complete systems. The critical question is whether those components continue working together under hazardous conditions. FM Approvals’ unique systems-based approach provides manufacturers and end-users with greater confidence that the entire structure will be resilient to severe climate events, supported by the tested and certified performance of the installed systems.

The cycle continues

In the United States alone, climate-driven disasters are projected to cause more than $1 trillion in damages between 2026 and 2030.² Every new loss investigation can potentially contribute additional information that can further refine FM hazard maps, FM property loss prevention data sheets, FM Approvals’ examination standards and FM Approved products. As a result, the engineering and research used to design climate-resilient buildings evolve to keep pace with the ever-changing hazards they must face.

¹ Swiss Re Institute “Wildfires, storms, floods contribute to record 92% of global insured losses in 2025, says Swiss Re Institute,” March 19, 2026.
² AGU “Near-Future Damages by US Weather and Climate Disasters,” December 26, 2025.