EDITOR’S COMMENT It was Earth Day this week. A day of the year on which hundreds of thousands of people – hopefully millions and perhaps one day even billions – around the world put the planet first.
It is a day that has been celebrated for 50 years. For half a century, 22 April has been given over to this wonderful planet of ours. It has been used to provide a voice to the emerging environmental consciousness that is flowing through the inhabitants of planet Earth and as a marker, a great big shout out to the media to use its front pages to stand up for the environment.
And who am I to disobey?
The horrible situation that we now find ourselves in has given the environment a bit of a break. There has been a marked fall in global nitrogen dioxide levels as a result of the slowdown in non-essential travel and industrial activity. In China, carbon emissions dropped by 18% between early February and mid-March, and here in Europe, reduced energy demand and a slowdown in manufacturing is expected to cause carbon emissions to fall by nearly 400m metric tonnes this year.
At a global level, this means annual carbon emissions could drop by more than 5% – the largest fall since the end of the Second World War.
But those wins, for a want of a better word, have come at a cost – a cost to life and a cost to the economy.
We know from experience that the world – and those businesses that make it through – bounce back to business as usual very quickly. So unless we learn some lessons from this crisis and couple those with learnings from before, those positives we might recognise today will be short-lived tomorrow. We cannot allow that to happen.
Carbon emissions could come surging back if we lean too heavily on carbon-intensive energy sources and this week’s negative oil prices to rebuild our economy. And we will need to rebuild, and do so quickly. The sceptic in me says this is the way we will do it.
But we don’t have to.
What if we as the real estate industry and as a powerful investment sector sought to push more capital into sustainable assets? What if governments around the world created stimulus packages that promoted sustainable growth?
What if, despite being out of the European Union, we used the European Green Deal as a framework for our recovery plan, a green plan that not only delivered on stimulating the economy and recreating jobs lost throughout this crisis but that supported sustainable growth too. That used the lessons we have learnt – and are learning – through this horribly tough, upsetting and strange time – to do better. To come out of this changed. To have a different view of what stimulates growth, of what makes people and therefore businesses productive, innovative, successful and, dare I say it, sustainable?
These were all points discussed in EG’s first virtual conference this week. If you missed Sustainability Live while it was being broadcast, fear not, the event will be uploaded to EG’s free-to-access Sustainability Hub and will be featured in a special edition of EG on 9 May.
These are indeed challenging and unprecedented times and we will undoubtedly need to get back to business as quickly as possible, but – as was the theme of this week’s Sustainability Live – let’s make sure that we do it thoughtfully. Let’s respond responsibly.
To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@egi.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @estatesgazette
