Sustainability: Counting the cost of the grey rhinoceros risk

It is hard to write about positives at a time when the world has been ripped apart by the coronavirus pandemic, but the virus has forced people and businesses to slow down, reflect and reassess. The enforced slowdown in non-essential travel and manufacturing has given the planet a break and has given businesses and individuals the opportunity to see the difference it is possible to make. “People are really aware now of their environment and the positive environment they are living in, even in this negative situation,” says Patricia Brown, director of Central. This awareness, says Brown, coupled with the enforced slowdown, could create the perfect environment for change. “One of the problems that we’ve had with behaviour change over the past 20-odd years is that we are not very good at giving things up,” she adds. “Now we’ve been made to give up things in a really harsh way. At warp speed we have had to stop doing the things that we wanted. We have to think about how we zero-base where we are at the moment and build back up in layers so that we can open up the economy again. So we can get back to working, but not as business as usual, as business as we want to define it.” Rebuilding and strengthening the economy post-coronavirus will and must be a focus for businesses and governments around the world but, and as was the focus of EG’s Recognising the Positives debate during our Sustainability Live virtual event on 22 April, this should not come at the cost of some of the learnings this current crisis has given us. For Hammerson’s head of sustainability Louise Ellison, if we are to navigate this crisis and come out of it differently there will be a real need for clear leaders and clear action around what real estate can deliver. “We need to be very forward-thinking as a sector in terms of how we think our sector can respond and what we think real estate will look like, what contribution it will be able to make over the next one, two, three, five, 10, 15 or 50 years,” says Ellison. “We need to think about how we’re going to create an economy that’s much more positive and reflects society or social needs.” That will, of course, need to be balanced with the refloating and regrowth of the economy over the next 18 months, says Ellison. “The temptation will be just to switch everything back on and try to get back to what we call business as usual,” adds Evora Global director Philippa Gill. “But this is an opportunity – as always comes in a crisis – to look at renewables, low-carbon energy sources and a much more human approach. But it will be for the brave to say ‘we’re going to seize that opportunity’.” Panel Patricia Brown, director, Central Louise Ellison, head of sustainability, Hammerson Philippa Gill, director, Europe, Evora “Politically, if you are wanting to refloat the economy fast, for the past 200 years the way we’ve always done this is by throwing cheap fossil fuels at that problem,” says Ellison. “You can see how that is going to be the easiest, most rapid way of getting some of these industries moving and getting some employment back in again. But for the businesses that are around for longer than a political cycle, it is even more important for us to be able to say ‘hang on, this is an opportunity to do this differently’ because the risks we are facing, the climate change risks that we are facing, haven’t gone away. “We can see how quickly that we can make a difference. But these things are very real. There are still people up and down the country who are out of the news now who are having to deal with being locked down while having been flooded out of their homes. If you’ve been flooded out, you don’t have a home to work in.” For Ellison, the Covid-19 crisis has enabled business to look at the way in which it deals with risk. It has enabled the identification of the grey rhinoceros risk – that highly probable, high-impact yet neglected risk. The grey rhino, so goes the theory, is not a random surprise but comes after a series of warnings and visible evidence. Climate change is not an elephant in the room. It is a grey rhinoceros. She believes that post-coronavirus, businesses will review the way in which they look at risk and that climate change will undoubtedly become part of that. Ellison points to a recent Better Buildings Partnership survey of its members, which showed that none expected to reduce their commitment to their sustainability agendas or see them challenged. “In many ways, because of some of the challenges that we are facing and will continue to face, those businesses that are already looking at sustainability and have a fairly comprehensive plan will be those that are more resilient to being able to come out of this in a positive way,” says Ellison, adding that the investor community is equally committed to the climate agenda. “They have recognised that level of risk that is attached to carbon and climate change,” she says. “That’s not going anywhere, so [sustainability] won’t be pushed to the bottom of the agenda. There will be a lot of revision of business plans, but I very much doubt that sustainability is going to become something that is carved out unless you are a business that is only seeing this as greenwashing and as PR. And if that is the case, you’ve got a bigger problem.” “Fortune favours the brave,” says Evora’s Gill. “The most important thing for us to do is to have a moment of reflection before we flip all the switches back on. To have a pause and a quiet moment amidst what will be an urgency, a panic. Before putting it all back on, we need to take the opportunity to ask ‘is it right to just flip this back on or can I do it a better way?’” And that decision-making power, that bravery, concludes Ellison, is firmly in the hands of us as individuals. “We have known for a long time that individual decisions can really make a difference in terms of climate change,” she says. “We need to really capture that and get people to acknowledge, understand and remember that it is in our hands to be able to make these changes. We are powerful when we move collectively.” To send feedback, e-mail louise.dransfield@egi.co.uk or tweet @DransfieldL or @estatesgazette Photo: Shutterstock