Delivering A Better Normal

Published between April and July 2020, these articles take an in-depth look at the future of the office, from the impact of physical distancing on our working lives, to whether we could ever engineer a “virus-proof” environment, to how a home-working revolution will affect demand for space. We consider the strategies and tools for making the office a destination of choice – giving people the flexible, frictionless, healthy environments that they have always wanted, and a stimulating, unique experience that just can’t be matched anywhere else.

COVID-19 has provided a new lens through which to view how healthcare systems work, and what it’s possible to achieve. It has brought radical change and massive expansion overnight, transforming facilities and workflows, and accelerating technological advances that had long been stalled. The crisis is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reflect, rethink and do things differently. How can we seize it, to ensure that our new normal is better than before?

Global determination to cut carbon emissions had never been higher than at the start of 2020. This was to have been the start of a decisive decade of action. But the rapid spread of COVID-19 worldwide, and ensuing health and economic crisis, has unquestionably shifted our attention, temporarily pushing environmental concerns down a notch. But, even as we grapple with the longer term implications of the pandemic, the climate crisis has not abated, and in many ways COVID-19 has served only to reinforce that fact. With the imperative to adopt net zero never stronger, we’ll be considering what will be driving the energy transition, why we should embrace it, and how we will achieve it.