Alliance bridges gap between climate risk and sustainable solutions

• New partnership will help planners and managers everywhere understand and prepare for climate-related challenges

DENVER, CO, Dec.1, 2010 -- CH2M HILL, a globally recognized leader in full service project delivery from planning through engineering, construction and operations, is pleased to announce a financial stake in CLIMsystems, Ltd., a New Zealand-based company.

CLIMsystems designs, develops and markets an advanced, user-friendly software modeling system called SimCLIM, for assessing impacts and adaptation to climate variability and change. Under this new alliance, CH2M HILL will work with CLIMsystems to apply SimCLIM for the purpose of helping its clients develop options and plans for reducing climatic risks to their operations and infrastructure.

CLIMsystems' premier scientists and world class Scientific Advisory Panel (which oversees development of their climate tools), in combination with CH2M HILL's industry-leading work in applied climate risk management, science and engineering, creates an unparalleled team to lead the development of defensible assessment of and response to climate risk.

"Combining CH2M HILL's climate, planning and engineering expertise with CLIMsystems' scientifically robust approaches for addressing climate effects makes this a unique alliance in the engineering world," says Kathy Freas, CH2M HILL's global director of water resources and ecosystem management. "Climate research has resulted in large amounts of highly specialized technical information. Translating that information to practical understanding of risks and impacts that can contribute to sound decisions at the local level can be a challenge," says Freas.

"This is the challenge that CLIMsystems accepted in developing its SimCLIM modeling system," explains Richard Warrick, CLIMsystems chairman and founding director. "We perceived a large gap between global climate science and local decision-making. We designed SimCLIM as a tool to help fill that gap."

Freas concludes, "Using CH2M HILL's on-the-ground experience in addressing climate risks, together with the defensible and practical science-based approaches embodied in CLIMsystems experts and tools, our new alliance is uniquely positioned to help clients develop climate-resilient futures."

CH2M HILL experts will be available during the Congress of Cities in Denver, Colo., Dec. 1-3, to discuss this enhanced partnership and its capabilities. For more information go to: http://ch2mhillblogs.com/water/

Headquartered in Denver, Colo., employee-owned CH2M HILL is a global leader in consulting, design, design-build, operations and program management for government, civil, industrial and energy clients. With $6.3 billion in revenue and 23,500 employees, CH2M HILL is an industry-leading program management, construction management and design firm, as ranked by Engineering News-Record (2010). The firm's work is concentrated in the areas of water, transportation, environmental, energy and power, and facilities and infrastructure. The firm has long been recognized as a most-admired company and leading employer. Visit www.ch2mhill.com.

CLIMsystems Ltd is headquartered in Hamilton, New Zealand and is a global leader in the development and provision of software modeling systems for assessment of the impacts and adaptation to climate variability and change. Visit www.climsystems.com

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