Join NEU's Session at the 2026 Fall ACI Concrete Convention - Atlanta

2 days ago
3 min read

NEU is offering a session on Metrics & Economics of Resilient Buildings for Reducing the Effects of Disasters: The Role of Concrete on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, 8:30 AM – 10:30 AM EST during the 2026 Fall ACI Concrete Convention in Atlanta.

Session description

Resilient building is currently evolving from a niche safety focus to a standard, high-performance integration of survivability and sustainability. With non-climate and climate-related disasters costing billions annually, the industry is shifting toward “functional recovery” – ensuring buildings are designed beyond life safety and remain habitable and operational after an event. This session, sponsored by NEU: an ACI Center of Excellence for Carbon Neutral Concrete, will focus on metrics, economics, and solutions for a resilient built environment that uses concrete. A panel discussion will round out this session.

Presenters and topics

ResilieNomics Lessons for the Built Environment, Aris Papadopoulos, Resilience Action Fund (RAF). This presentation will define resilience in the built environment, discuss the magnitude of vulnerable development and explain how property markets can shift to recognize and reward resilient construction. It will examine the roles of insurance, metrics, finance and engineering in creating a resilient built environment.
Understanding and Using IFC’s Building Resilience Index (BRI), Ommid Saberi, International Finance Corporation (IFC). The presentation will overview BRI, the hazards it addresses, its rating system, physical integrity and operational continuity rating system, and the roles of assessors and verifiers. It will discuss IFC's rollout to date, training opportunities for building professionals, and near-term program strategy.
Integrating above-code building resilience into the ACI Documents and the Industry, Jose (Pepe) Izquierdo-Encarnacion, PORTICUS CS. Minimum code compliance under ACI 318 is calibrated to life-safety performance — collapse prevention under design-level events — not to post-event functionality or the pace of recovery. For essential facilities, hurricane- and seismic-exposed regions, and non-ductile concrete inventories built before modern detailing provisions, this life-safety floor is increasingly mismatched to what owners, insurers, and jurisdictions actually need: buildings that can be reoccupied within days, not years. The presentation examines the gap between ACI's current code-and-guide architecture and an above-code resilience framework and proposes a pathway to close it through the Institute's own documents.
Building for Resilience: How Concrete Contributes to High BRI Ratings, Cesar Constantino, Saint-Gobain. This presentation will explain how concrete can help building engineers and developers achieve high ratings under the IFC Building Resilience Index (BRI) framework, including A and AA ratings. It will provide an overview of the mitigation measures that concrete can support across the BRI hazard categories of wind, water, fire, and geo-seismic events. Finally, it will discuss how engineers can assist developers and architects in designing buildings that meet targeted BRI rating requirements.
Integrating resilience in the sustainability evaluation of buildings and pavement: a life cycle perspective, Hessam Azarijafari, Louisiana State University. As climate-related hazards and extreme events become more frequent, the ability of infrastructure to withstand, adapt to, and recover from disruptions (aka its resilience) has become a critical consideration alongside traditional sustainability goals. This presentation explores the meaning of resilience in the built environment and examines how it can be systematically integrated into the sustainability evaluation of buildings and pavements. Using a life-cycle perspective, we discuss how resilience considerations influence environmental, economic, and social impacts across all stages, from material production and construction to use, maintenance, and end-of-life.