Adapting for a more sustainable future – a new way of living?
Humans are very adaptable and inventive. When we have needed things to improve our lives, we have set about designing, making and refining them. These adaptions have then become ingrained into our every day.
What we are less good at is letting go of what we have got used to. However, when a crisis befalls us we have learnt that we can adapt very quickly indeed – dropping what we thought we could not live without.
So what changes do we want to keep going forward from this crisis?
The way we work and not having to go into the office has been a revelation. We have adopted technologies to cope with meetings and communication and adapted our homes to make way for work.
The consequences are that the air became cleaner, the skies clearer and noise levels dropped so much I thought I had been transported back to the 70’s.
Going forward, we need to ensure the new homes we build have an area that can be adopted as a work space. Not just for people in larger homes, but for people in smaller homes too. Work areas should not dominate the home, so that it can also be a place of rest and enjoyment. Infrastructure needs to be put in place so that the systems can work optimally and accommodate future technological requirements.
Good quality outdoor leisure space is also important. Be that through balconies, communal or private gardens – where we can relax, play or grow our own foods. Unlike offices, developments seldom allow for social interaction, something we have all missed.
All these changes mean that we can also review the way our towns and cities work for us.
On the list of things we can do are;
- Improve public transport, making it safer, more cost-effective and reliable
- Increase cycle pathways and make them safer
- Adapt routes to benefit pedestrians
- Introduce more greenery into the urban environment
- Make our towns and cities more enjoyable to use
If we can make the adaptions now, we can prevent the inevitable slide back into a world dominated by waste, pollution and noise. We can make our homes, towns and cities more inclusive and as importantly, we would make them more sustainable.
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