The work from home trend has impacted real estate around the world, and in some places, up to 50% of office space is lying dormant. Central London, for example, has 31 million square feet of empty work space, the equivalent of. Last year, the vacancy rate for office real estate in Munich, Germany, rose for the fourth year in a row.
“Breaking down a building to build something new is just about the worst thing you can do,” said Schmidt. “Transformation starts with the investment itself. In the past, clients only cared about the return on the investment. That is changing. Now, the investment should also be generating something good in the end.”
One third of the space will be transformed into affordable housing for rent, one third will become refurbished energy-efficient office space, and the rest will be converted for commercial purposes and sports and leisure facilities. Existing green spaces and trees will be maintained, and renewable energy will be generated onsite.
Schmidt pointed out that achieving 107 GW, the sum total of all the EU nations’ individual offshore energy, would require enough offshore wind parks to compensate for around 500 nuclear power plants. To say that greater regional collaboration is needed for meeting these targets is putting it mildly.