I’m a built environment design professional with 20+ years’ experience helping clients to make and manage more sustainable buildings and places, i.e. those that create environmental, social and economic shared value. Enabling all people and the planet to thrive.
In 2016, I founded Futureground as a sustainable place strategy consultancy. We apply design thinking to challenge and inspire our property industry clients. We co-create solutions to help solve our biggest social and environmental challenges. Fresh thinking, not box-ticking.
Our buildings are core to the poor health of both people and planet. They account for one-third of our greenhouse emissions, 40-50% of resources extracted are used for housing, construction and infrastructure, and we typically spend 80-90% of our time indoors.
Whilst currently falling short in its responsibilities, I believe in the vast expertise and capability of the property industry. There is a huge, un-tapped desire to take action on social and environmental change and leave a positive legacy for future generations.
My decades plugging away at trying to do more good and not just less bad have given me clarity on focus areas. The following three areas of current disfunction are ripe for creative and technologically-powered disruption, and it is these that form the core of my residency interest. More specifically:
· Poor cognisance of the fundamental connections between people, place and planet.
· Low levels of professionalism and sense of collective ownership within a highly fragmented system.
· Many closed, opaque and high-friction processes and ways of working.