Realty Coverage 2022: Real Estate, Sustainability & Office Innovation
Two days of innovative inspiration
The largest B2B event for political and real estate leaders was held in Gare Maritime from the 20th of September until the 21st of September 2022. Workero were proud partners for the 2-day extravaganza! Themes for Realty2022 ranged from sustainability and inspiring cities to ESG and impact investing, so it sincerely was an unmissable event by any standard.?
The Office Market
Workero CEO Dirk Paelinck acted as moderator for various important discussions, most notably The Office Market at FORUM II. Featured speakers included:?
All speakers used their expertise to share invaluable insights on important topics such as the increasing demand for flexibility, end user expectations from workspace providers, strategy of innovative landlords and the importance of well-being on productivity and talent retention. Frédéric de Goldschmidt highlighted how his passion for art collecting contributed to greater employee wellbeing. Historically, art has been a selling point to attract creatives, but when integrated into the wider workplace it can add immense value, thus increasing retention and addressing the war for talent currently seen from sector to sector.?
Another such way to attract the best talent is to open up your own accelerator programme to drive innovation internally. Aiming for a bigger impact for your brand on the market isn’t impossible, despite increased competition. Opening up your organisation to external talent that can have a business impact may be the perfect starting point for such an aspiration. Workero’s open innovation ecosystem ensures you can keep up with the speed of change, something our market specialists were happy to shout about throughout the Realty 2022 conference.?
When asked about important considerations from the HR perspective, Tim Weyts highlighted the importance of customised spaces with employees in mind from the design stage. Conceding that a building can’t alone improve employee wellbeing, Grigor built on Tim’s view that obstacle free spaces are just as important. However, this all needs to carried out with environmental considerations clearly prioritised, something employees are becoming increasingly aware and influenced by. A certain level of storytelling all need prioritised to establish pragmatic solutions for end users.?
Sustainability Buildings: Five minds, one mission.?
The Sustainability Buildings conference seen Dirk Paelinck take the stage again for a supercharged conversation on what solutions are needed to achieve carbon neutrality in buildings. Participants included a star-studded roster of business leaders who really are at the forefront of renewable and green business transformation! Speakers included:
All gave practical advice on a wide range of measures, financial instruments and technologies that can be leveraged to help us with the decarbonisation of existing stock.
Koen Meert , Senior Director Development, Innovation & Sustainability at Emaar began with opening remarks. Every building in Dubai needs to comply with the Dubai building code, something Koen directly contributed to with his structural design vision. As Winner of the Big5 Construction Award - Sustainability initiative of the Year, it was fitting that Koen was there to share his story. If you are interested in innovative construction techniques, 0 waste production and how implementation can be achieved through small changes in day-to-day building techniques, then Koen is your main man. He boasts 30% reduction in diesel usage through on-site solar panel installations, and this was just one such way of maximising environmental impacts at the build stage itself! Sustainability doesn't solely apply to the building owner, but to the developers themselves. Reduction of co2 is a priority in this sphere, and Koen specifically highlighted the reduction of embodied carbon.?
Maybe the most important part of Koen’s speech was the implications of these innovations if replicated on scale. You could physically see attendees visualising these progressive construction practices and imagining a future where solar-powered development flourishes within their very own neighbourhoods, be that in Brussels or in Beirut.?
Isabelle De Bruyne , Chief Sustainability Officer at CFE honed in on mentality and planning. She encouraged attendees to dare to change the way they approach building projects from the design stage, as opposed to attempting to offset the negative environmental effects after the fact. Highlighting that actual buildings are full of reusable materials and that a less-is-more approach is possible, we are sure she gave audiences food for thought.?
领英推荐
Ajay Shah , Head of Sustainability at Modulous, blitzed into his speech with accuracy and energy. His high quality sustainable homes acted as a case study of sorts, as he continues to develop at scale and at pace. He urged business leaders in the audience to dive even deeper into sustainability, promoting the ridiculous value materials are projected to reach in the next 50 years.
His aim wasn’t just one of designing for the factory, but accounting for the end of the product with sustainable material management. He favours deconstruction as opposed to destruction, and already utilises this mindset to focus his climate aware targets. As a previous leader in designing Google’s Indian Headquarters, Ajay from the project's conception elevated user comfort and user journey into each element of the building. Decompressing from exterior to interior was one such example, with the fear of thermal shock being mitigated for and solved in the design stage.?
Ajay summarised the sustainable aspirations of business leaders at Realty using quite possibly the metaphor of the summit, likening the lifecycle of the Cherry Tree to explain eco-effective principles. Cherry trees are an environmental positive with a multitude of benefits. After taking root, thousands of flowers produce not just shade for nearby inhabitants but fruit for people, birds, and other creatures. The tree produces a lot of fruits and blossoms without harming the environment. Once they decompose, cherry trees continue to contribute food to the soil, insects, plants, animals, and microbes in its vicinity. The circular nature of the cherry tree’s lifecycle could be a valuable starting point for startups and scale-ups serious about tackling the climate crisis, or just those wishing to achieve their net-zero targets through a no-waste agenda.?
Gilles Vanvolsem Van Volsem has extensive experience in the Sustainability management sector, notably with Befimmo (Belgian office real estate investment company) and Deloitte, in which he has been active for more than 18 years. A main challenge raised by Gilles was the very definition of “sustainable building”. Proof of sustainability is an important aspect of reporting for shareholders and stakeholders, however, an irony can present itself. Investing money on sustainable labels can take away from the main aim of investing in the sustainable technology and business drivers necessary to meet the very target and goals the labels are there for. Maybe this is where EU taxonomy may provide a level of consistency that has been missing. Quite rightly, Gilles highlighted how different stakeholders have different versions of sustainability and urgent alignment is needed, so there is still room to progress in this regard. This can be taken as a negative, with ‘labels’ being misconstrued as Green Washing, but realistically this is business leaders not just engaging in worldwide sustainability and net-zero aims, but sharing the real obstacles to environmentally aware real estate. Progress is at the forefront of business leaders conversations, and you could feel and hear the impatience from featured speakers who are pursuing change at all costs.
For many businesses, funding is the be all and end all. Prof. Rudy Aernoudt provided a reality check to those in attendance. “The money is there”, he proclaimed. Audiences were visibly taken aback by the staggering amount of funding still available to European based businesses pursuing environmentally sustainable projects. Over 700billion needs to be committed by 2023 yet only 100billion has been claimed so far! As a Professor in Corporate Finance and European policy with outstanding International and European experience (ranging from MIT to continued work as Senior Economist for the Chief Economist Team at the European Commission itself), Realty were very lucky to have such an authority in attendance.?
European PropTech Startup and Scaleup Awards 2022?
For those concerned with affordable living, we saw an incredible amount of new technology presented at the European PropTech Startup and Scaleup Awards 2022 addressing this very problem. The European Commission supported the awards, which notably serve as the biggest PropTech competition in Europe of its kind. Ten of the greatest PropTech/ConTech businesses presented live to a panel of more than 70 real estate specialists from across Europe. These included:
To summarise your company and it’s merits in just 4 minutes is no easy feat, but all participants managed to keep their presentations within the timeframe. Reusable water systems for both residential and corporate use were on show from Hydraloop who collect, treat and re-use the water from showers, baths, washers & dryers, heat pumps and air conditioning units. As precious resources dwindle, the best and brightest minds are finding innovative ways to preserve.?
Tine Charlotte Holm during her Startup and Scale Up awards pitch for Carrot targeted our collective waste problem. By gathering information from priceless resources that would otherwise be wasted as trash, Carrot offered a “new world of circular materials”. Public and private waste management firms can utilise their software to incentivize users for their efforts to sort recyclables.?
Portable home electric vehicle chargers, reusable walls made from recycled materials and subscription-based furnishing were just some of the groundbreaking technology on display. In the end, there could only be one winner. Voting was tough, but Concular were crowned champions, wowing the jury with their digital ecosystem for circular construction. Their overall aim is to close the material loop and make an important contribution to the circular economy. No doubt we will hear a lot more from them in the coming years!
As proud partners for this year’s Realty Summit 2022, Workero were beyond grateful to be in a room with the true innovators of our era.?
As the final day of Realty 2022 started to wind down, Workero staff left the Gare Maritime beyond inspired and utterly hopeful for a future much different from our current reality. One where efficient reuse of resources becomes the norm and recycled materials are commonplace across the market. Fear of the worst i.e climate catastrophe, resource wars and the like has been a common driver for sustainable progression. But when push comes to shove, entrepreneurial innovation is the key to overcoming the existential challenges we collectively face.?
In closing, we would like to thank each and every partner, participant, panellist and person who committed their time to quite possibly the most motivating event of the year. If you didn’t get the chance to connect with us at the event, feel free to visit the Workero website to connect with our workplace specialists.?
It was a pleasure being a part of this fantastic event! So many great speakers and attendees. We're looking forward to the next one!