Ersin Kara

The tide of digitisation in the workplace cannot be stopped, but we can harness it to improve the health of workers and overall sustainability, writes JLL’s Susan Sutherland.

With technology permeating everything that we do, it’s led to significant transformation in the workplace—specifically, how, where (and who) is working and what work employees do. The speed of change and disruption across industries has also caused greater uncertainty as many businesses rethink the way they harness their talent and real estate.

Digitalisation

For one, automation and artificial intelligence will change many job functions and render others irrelevant across different industries—particularly jobs and tasks that are manual or process driven. JLL research has found that as a result, the future workforce will be divided into three segments: core employees, freelancers and consultants, and jobs that are automated.

Core employees will be concentrated in smaller and fewer locations, ideally in central business districts with transportation and amenities concentrated nearby—reducing their energy and resource usage. This smaller core workforce could mean smaller office footprints requiring less energy from power and less waste generated.

In parallel, the emergence of the ‘liquid workforce’—freelancers, consultants and more—means potentially less commuting and perhaps a cleaner way of working. The need for flexibility to accommodate the uncertain operating environment and more project-based work could require more modular fit-outs and by extension, possibly less materials and waste in the building process.

Work can become healthier and more sustainable with the progress of digitisation. Image: Betta Living, CC BY-NC 2.0

Sustainability and smart buildings

We’ve already seen how many forward-thinking organisations have already adopted more efficient real estate management in the form of smart buildings and smart offices.
This is essentially powered by the Internet of Things to drive efficiency and real-time optimisation of building operations such as automatic monitoring and optimisation of air conditioning—of particular interest in Asia, where indoor as well as outdoor air quality is a perennial issue.
Healthy workplaces that make people feel good can help prevent attrition rates in a labour market where companies are battling to retain staff.
Some features of smart buildings and workplaces also herald a shift to a less paper-based workplace—from centralised ‘follow me’ printing (which means print jobs are sent to a centralised system and only released to their users upon activation for less wastage) to less storage in hot desk environments.
Companies are also embracing a more holistic view of sustainability. They’re thinking about more than cost-savings or maximising spaces to creating healthy, fulfilling, and productive environments for employees.

We now speak about healthy buildings instead of simply sustainable ones. In fact, the World Green Building Council now promotes the concept of healthy green buildings—buildings that are environmentally sensitive but also provide for the well-being of staff.

Recent JLL research on human experience reveals that sustainability and health are important to employees, and wellness facilities are rated as the workplace amenity most likely to drive higher workplace engagement.

For instance, biophilic design or buildings with more access to nature and greenery makes a significant difference to workers. A JLL survey done in conjunction with Tedx Sydney last year found that over 90 per cent of those surveyed felt more productive and creative with access to fresh air, indoor light and air quality and healthy food, fitness centres, and even mental health services.

Healthy workplaces that make people feel good can help prevent attrition rates in a labour market where companies are battling to retain staff.

Authorities and organisations are beginning to take this seriously. The Building and Construction Authority in Singapore, for one, has announced plans to work together with the Health Promotion Board to roll out a new Green Mark scheme in mid-2018 that aims to improve the health of occupants through office interior and wellness programmes.

Amid the changes to workspaces and work practices, a side benefit that comes up is these could ensure employees have both more time and access to other pursuits that boosts creativity, innovation and ensure a healthy balance in their life.
The drive towards a digitised workplaces and improved employee experience could just lead us to a healthier happier lives and a more sustainable future in real estate.

Susan Sutherland is the Head of APAC Corporate Research for JLL in Singapore. This article was written exclusively for Eco-Business.

Tuncay Özilhan, the chairman of the board of Anandolu Group, one of the members of the five-company joint venture to produce Turkey’s domestic automobile, has said Boston Consulting has been selected as an international consulting company for the project, explaining the consulting company will work on the project’s feasibility.

Prefacing that the domestic car will be a buyable product, Özilhan said: “The most expensive component of the automobile is the battery, which sees very quick developments, hence getting cheaper.” He explained that the gearbox and electric motor are not sophisticated and that the software is the complicated part to manufacture, as it requires a more refined job. Therefore, he said the cost of the automobile will decrease. “If you ask buyers to pay higher prices, you cannot guarantee demand in the product.”

As for the reasons why Anadolu Group participated in the project, Özilhan cited his belief in the feasibility of the automobile.

Özilhan also said: “The idea of being part of a national project and the development of new electric cars incited me.” He added that Turkey holds an advantageous position with this initiative and that it is not too late. “For instance, Anadolu Isuzu is working on an electric bus project, as electric buses undergo a terrific transformation across the world.”

Last month, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced Thursday the names of five companies – Anadolu Group, BMC, Kıraça Holding, Turkcell and Zorlu Holding – that will take part in the consortium to make Turkey’s first domestically produced car.

From fire-proof forests to famine-stopping ‘bananas on steroids’, scientists are juicing up nature’s bounty to solve the 21st Century’s problems.

You eat them, you wear them, you put them in vases and gawk at them appreciatively  – but are you really using them to their full potential? According to researchers at the Botanical Gardens at Kew in the UK, there are plenty more ways we could be harnessing the power of plants. From being natural fire-fighters to potential famine-thwarters, here are four incredible ways that plants could revolutionise our world.

Cross-breeding super plants

When we eat vegetables on our dinner plates, what we’re looking at were once ordinary crops that were grown on a farm. But those farm-grown crops had relatives out in the wild – that were “to our food plants what wolves are to dogs”, according to the project Crop Wild Relatives (CWR).

But those roguish cousins living in the wild – far away from domesticating farms – have developed resilience to pests, diseases, soil salinity and climate change.

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That’s why plant breeders are working to crossbreed these wild crops with our domestic crops to make them just as hardy as their cousins – while still offering us the benefits that tamed plants offer, such as a high yield.

It’s a truly worldwide plan; the countries that have the highest number of wild plant cousins are Brazil, China, and India, while the countries with the highest concentration of them are Azerbaijan, Portugal and Greece. The benefits that this cross-breeding programme could have in developing countries in particular could be indispensable as world population growth reaches over nine billion.

However, despite this global spread of crop wild relatives, they’re being threatened by a wide array of environmental antagonists. Most of these are down to humanity’s intrusion, be it through land-use change, global warming, pollution, war and the intensification of agriculture. The Millennium Seed Bank of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is working alongside partners that run breeding programmes around the world and save these hearty wild cousins in the next several years.

Using plants as medicine

This isn’t anything new – the use of plants is medicine has been known since time immemorial. But are we being too slow to register new uses?

Over 28,000 plant species are currently recorded as being of medicinal use, but fewer than 16% of them are cited in a medicinal regulatory publication. When the World Health Organization last estimated the plant-based medicinal industry’s worth in 2012, it totalled a mind-boggling $83bn (£62bn).

The industry is growing increasingly popular; in Germany, around 90% of the population use herbal medicines that are derived from plants such as foxglove and garlic. But one major problem, of course, is that health regulators are keen to stop the proliferation of unsafe or phony products entering the market; a lazy approach to authentication has already meant that herb names have been confused with those with similar sounding names and patients have ended up ingesting a wildly inappropriate (and potentially lethal) drug.

China is one country trying to stop this. In December 2016, Chinese government officials announced their aim to integrate more traditional Chinese medicine into their healthcare system by 2020, as well as presenting detailed illustrations and descriptions of the source plants to stop any future confusion happening.

If we’re to utilise plants to their full life-saving potential,the researchers make urgent recommendations: sourcing plants from sustainable resources, cultivating them, introducing reliable traceability procedures and secure more effective quality control.

Bananas on steroids

Well, not quite bananas. The enset is a member of the banana family that has been cultivated in Ethiopia for tens of thousands of years – the Ethiopians in fact have over 200 names for it – and it has several different uses. As well as being a staple crop in Africa it can make rope, medicine, shelter, animal feed and clothes, not to mention also providing an ideal microclimate for coffee plants to flourish in. It withstands drought, heavy rain and flooding. Basically – is there anything that this ‘false banana’ can’t do?

Scientists have been investigating where else this climate-smart plant could be grown elsewhere, particularly in other African regions and in countries that face famines. It feeds more people per square metre of crop than most cereals and is made into three foods – a sour-tasting dough, soups and porridges, and a boiled root similar to a potato.

Technology is fast changing the world we live in, so it is essential for schools to introduce young students to the skills and concepts they will need to succeed in the years ahead.

“Research shows that many of today’s youngsters will be doing jobs no one has yet imagined,” says Dr Robin Lister, founding headmaster of Malvern College Hong Kong, which is set to open for students in primary Year 1 up to secondary Year 9 in late August 2018. “It is safe to assume, though, that technology will play a big part, so we have to prepare them for that through a combination of factual knowledge, problem-solving, and independence of thought.”

With this in mind, the school invited BSD Code & Design Academy to conduct an introductory coding workshop on November 18, with one session for five- to seven-year-olds, and another for those aged eight to 12. It met with an enthusiastic response and gave children the chance to learn some of the basics, apply those skills to a practical task, and have some fun.

“Looking ahead, we intend to make coding part of the school’s co-curricular programme, besides incorporating the key elements in subjects like physics and maths,” Lister says. “It’s like learning another language. But it will be vital for anyone in IT, robotics, and much else, and fortunately young kids seem to have an in-built ability to do it.”

Along with sports and drama, the range of co-curricular activities on offer will also include music – with plans for a jazz band and orchestra – interest-based clubs, mandatory debating, and chess, which is great for developing analytical skills.

“If you enable a child to shine in one area, that gives a new level of confidence which then comes out in everything else they do,” Lister says. “Therefore, our philosophy is to be traditional in some respects, for example with wearing school uniforms and ties, but at the same time forward-looking. Children must learn to be global citizens, and Hong Kong is archetypical of that.”

Construction work at the school’s waterfront site next to Science Park is ahead of schedule and other preparations are also well in hand. Around 350 to 400 students are expected to start in the first intake, with the application and admissions process already well under way. As the initial group of Year 9 students moves up to Year 12, there will be an extra class added each year. When at full capacity, that will mean a total of around 1,000 pupils.

The main medium of instruction is English and the intention is to use the IB (International Baccalaureate) curriculum all the way through, but with a few tweaks and additions to take account of the expectations of students and parents in Hong Kong.

For example, each class will have daily Putonghua lessons, taught in line with a newer methodology which use more interaction and less rote learning. All teachers will be native speakers, and groups will generally be based on ability. In due course, other languages such as Spanish and German will also be introduced.

“Coming to a good school, you should be able to take the academic side and things like STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] for granted,” Lister says. “Our expectation is that students will perform well in exams. That’s important, but it cannot be seen on its own. To prepare children for the future, we also have to spend time on developing character, personality and resilience.”

The on-site facilities will include an extensive library cum “maker space”, where children will have access to everything from Lego to basic electrical components – and the freedom to use their creativity.

A certain number of bursaries and scholarships will be available, with the latter awarded not just for academic performance, but also for sports, drama and – potentially – for other activities and accomplishments, too.

“Malvern College Hong Kong is a day school, but we will look to instil something of the ‘boarding’ ethos,” Lister says. “Therefore, every student will be allocated to a ‘house’ with a tutor to ensure everyone is up to speed academically and taking a full part in other activities. Help will be given where needed, and that applies equally in the case of exceptional students because we want to make sure talent is brought out. In addition, we will have policies in place for the use of devices and social media, which otherwise can become all-consuming.”