Notes from Davos

This has been the 12th time I have attended the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting at Davos since 2011.?The number of challenges the world has to tackle has been rising over recent years to an extent that is hard to keep track of.?Many of those challenges cannot be solved by any one country, not even the US or China.?We might have hoped that more than 75 years after World War II the world would have been able to build a supra national institution, fully empowered with a can do mentality in order to deal with these challenges.?Unfortunately, this is not the case and that is why any type of forum where relevant stakeholders are coming together is a good thing.

What did I learn from this week??I continue to be optimistic that technology will solve many of mankind’s issues, whether we are talking about environmental sustainability, pandemics or other threatening health problems like cancer.?Technology will also provide us with massive new challenges which we have to get our heads around and, yes, there was a lot of chatter around ChatGPT.?I also reserved some time in my calendar to attend a panel discussion on the Metaverse, as well as a workshop on the practical applications of the Metaverse.?It helped me to understand more about what opportunities this will provide, but also reminded me of the tremendously important questions around data privacy and loss of identity, among many others.

Obviously, as with many other business leaders, I was interested to hear where the economy is going, where interest rates will peak in the US and whether we will get a full-blown recession or only a small dip in the US economy.?The overall mood around these questions was far more optimistic than I would have expected.?The decline from an extremely high inflation rate to just a very high inflation rate in the US and Europe has enthused a lot of people.?Other than allowing governments to get rid of their excessive debt levels, I struggle to see any advantage in inflation.?What I do see is that inflation hurts the lower half of society to an unacceptable extent and will only increase the social tensions we are seeing in many parts of the world.?

What does provide me with optimism??The Annual Meeting in Davos was as crowded as in the years before the pandemic and people were very engaged to contribute.?The interest in real estate and all the questions around it has increased.?The WEF debate on real estate, at which I was a panelist, was this year held in one of the best rooms in the conference center, livestreamed and attracted a full attendance.

Throughout the week, the interest shown by clients and prospects in engaging with members of JLL’s delegation was higher than ever.?Questions around the return to work, increasing the productivity in buildings, attracting and retaining talent through outstanding work environments, were among those on the minds of many executives.?Furthermore, it was great to hear how engaged large companies are in progressing on their ESG journey.?The amount of impressive examples of reducing the carbon footprints of companies was really inspiring.?It may not be enough, but at least nobody seems to be slowing down just because the economic environment has become more challenging.?It is worth noting that we have trained over 30,000 JLL colleagues on sustainability over the last two years, paving the ground for our more than 750 sustainability experts who are guiding our clients with practical solutions to reduce the carbon footprint within their portfolio.

Now, it is easy to feel more encouraged about the prospects for the world as WEF’s Annual Meeting concludes.?On Monday, reality returns bringing plenty of day-to-day challenges that are not covered with beautiful white snow.?As I write this blog, the US Congress has to deal with the debt ceiling.?Hopefully politicians will live up to their responsibility and swiftly agree on an increase.?This is not the time for political games.?As I said at the beginning, we have enough issues to solve in the world and we need the most important nations and their leaders to step up.?Most business leaders I know are more than willing to help to improve the state of the world, but it remains one of our most important tasks to drive growth into our businesses and therefore into the overall economy.?A growing economy will provide high-paid jobs, create the funding to develop a sustainable economic model, and is critical to feeding a growing global population.?We have a full year ahead to demonstrate progress before the WEF Annual Meeting 2024 will begin.