How can we reinvent the future?

What should we bring with us?

Quarantines, social distancing, and lockdowns have brought positive side effects - less pollution, cleaner beaches, lower CO2 emissions, to mention a few things.

Also, the digital shift has taken a quantum leap with the help of the pandemic. Businesses, leaders, teams, educational institutions, and students worldwide have been forced to adopt digital tools and solutions over a short time. For good, and for bad.

Living the way that we’re temporarily living due to the pandemic, is not going to be possible - nor is it desirable - in the long run. We need to decide what and how we can bring with us into the future from this experience. We also need to determine what we should leave behind.

Greener industries

A sustainable future requires greener industries. How can we move forward together to create these? Can smart use of design help solve the climate and environmental problems we face, while maintaining profitable businesses? We believe so.

We can see now that social distancing reduces consumption, which consequently helps reduce emissions. Of course, we will still need – and want – to continue consuming after the pandemic has passed. But what if we make the transition from a linear economy to a circular one? Then business, consumption, and growth can continue, but in a sustainable way. To do this, we need the help of design thinking and design innovation.

The digital shift and social innovation

Covid19 has forced the speeding up of the digital shift. How can we take advantage of this to create a better, more equal future for everyone? Today, in many parts of the world, there are huge gaps between the access to information and digital infrastructure between different groups in society. We need to change this. What incentives, processes, and insights can we use? Finding the answers to these questions is vital, as we know that digital tools and remote collaboration can help make society more equal and democratic. Social innovation and the digital shift are highly intertwined and interdependent.

A matter of ethics

It may be a worn-out word, and you might be tired of hearing it – but ethics matter. Now more than ever. And we need to include it in business. It's not a matter of "corporate socialism" – it's a necessity for the survival of the planet, of people and the economy. Business doesn't stand alone or operate in a vacuum. We need to take ethical responsibility to succeed. We need to ask the right questions to make the right decisions.

Is it easy? No. But I believe that by working together, we can figure it out and come out stronger than before the crisis.