The Resilient Sydney Strategy
Resilient Sydney Strategy 2025-2030
The Resilient Sydney Strategy 2025-2030 has five core directions and 30 actions addressing our regions vulnerabilities and shared city-wide priorities for a future-ready city.
The Strategy was informed by a regional resilience risk assessment and engagement with over 200 organisations and 2000 individuals. It responds to the top 15 shocks and 15 stresses for our city.
Our strategy is an evidence based roadmap for managing risk; building collective capacity and a city-wide plan designed to strengthen Greater Sydney’s ability to withstand, adapt to, and thrive amid major challenges, including climate change, economic pressures, social inequality, and natural disasters.
Engagement Report 2024
This compilation report provides the key findings from engagement activities to inform the Resilient Sydney strategy 2025–2030. The outcomes of engagement were incorporated throughout the strategy development process.
Synthesis Report 2024
This report presents the key outcomes of the community engagement and risk assessment and describes how the synthesis of this information provides the evidence base to develop action areas for the Resilient Sydney Strategy 2025 to 2030.
Youth Engagement Report 2024
Being open-minded with fresh perspectives and creativity, young people said it was vital to capture their perspectives. Their standing as “intergenerational burden bearers” who will inherit the consequences of today’s decisions, made their consultation important.
Five directions
Each action in this strategy addresses multiple shocks and stresses. For each direction we describe the challenges facing Greater Sydney and why we need to act. We identify actions based on priorities and opportunities identified through community and stakeholder engagement and the risk assessment.
Direction 1
Care for the environment
Focuses on how we reframe our relationship with the natural environment to value and protect it and use resources sustainably.
- 01 Embed First Nations knowledge and practices in land management
- 02 Connect and protect green and blue places
- 03 Increase tree canopy and habitat across Greater Sydney
- 04 Increase biosecurity awareness
- 05 Secure the future of Sydney’s water supply
- 06 Support electrification and the energy transition
- 07 Improve the security of Greater Sydney’s food systems
- 08 Address Greater Sydney’s waste crisis
Direction 2
People-centred city
Considers how we make this place safe and equitable, now and in the future, for all the people who live here.
- 09 Plan and design places to withstand increased natural hazards
- 10 Improve the heat resilience of communities in Greater Sydney
- 11 Increase and improve affordable rental housing
- 12 Better connected communities with active and public transport
- 13 Create inclusive and welcoming public places
Direction 3
Connect for strength
Proposes actions to build strong social connections and communities where we care for each other.
- 14 Embed dignity principles in leadership and engagement
- 15 Replenish resilience through creative and cultural expression
- 16 Support First Nations self-determination
- 17 Facilitate community-led action
- 18 Engage children and young people in decision-making about the future and their wellbeing
- 19 Measure and value social capital
- 20 Facilitate inclusive access to social infrastructure
Direction 4
Be ready
Responds to the urgency for us to be collectively prepared for shock events by harnessing stronger relationships and empowering communities.
- 21 Embed person-centred emergency planning
- 22 Research community preparedness and support coordinated campaigns
- 23 Improve emergency awareness in apartment buildings
- 24 Coordinate and encourage volunteering
- 25 Collaborate to be better prepared for emergencies
Direction 5
One city
Addresses the governance challenges facing Sydney in a way that enables the goals of directions 1, 2, 3 and 4 to be realised.
- 26 Promote and participate in collaborative governance and engagement for Greater Sydney
- 27 Adopt region-wide data and tools
- 28 Enhance the Resilient Sydney data platform
- 29 Strengthen the resilience of council assets
- 30 Galvanise resilience across Greater Sydney
Our approach
Developing the strategy
Photo by Cassandra Hannagan.
Four main drivers of change are now shaping human societies: globalisation, urbanisation, climate change and digitalisation.
The global Resilient City Framework is an internationality recognised way to understand how cities are changing and how we can strengthen their resilience.
The framework responds to these drivers and describes the characteristics of a resilient city across 4 dimensions, and informed the structure of our resilience risk assessment:
- Health and wellbeing: the health and wellbeing of everyone living and working in the city.
- Natural and built environments: the quality of the ecosystems and built infrastructure connecting and supporting the city.
- Economy and society: the systems within the society an economy that enable urban population to live peacefully and sustainably.
- Governance and planning: appropriate leadership, governance and strategy enabling the city to learn from the past and take timely action.
The resilience risk assessment combined with community engagement identified priority shocks and stresses facing Greater Sydney.
This included:
- First Nations engagement with organisations, Elders and young people
- 8 community workshops with 282 people across Sydney
- 5 youth workshops
- 5 multicultural roundtables
- 1,501 community members responded to an online survey
- 4 workshops with resilience ambassadors from Greater Sydney councils
- 3 risk assessment stakeholder workshops
- 171 representatives at local and state government summit
- 100 stakeholder expert interviews
- 1,200 people participated in 30 sector events
- sector workshops (volunteering, arts and culture, public health)
- deliberative panel on natural hazard risks
Through the strategy development process, we have engaged over 2,000 community members and 200 organisations. All 33 councils in Greater Sydney have been involved.
We identified the shocks and stresses most likely to impact our city. Our resilience risk assessment analysed how global drivers and national trends shape Greater Sydney.
The strategy is based on extensive research and engagement across four phases to:
Build the evidence base including priority shocks and stresses for Greater Sydney
Test the shocks and stresses and identify resilience challenges
Explore action areas to address these resilience challenges
Develop and refine actions