Orient Magazine Special Orient Supplement: Future of Work | Page 2

Orient - The Official Magazine of the British Chamber of Commerce Singapore - Issue 71 April 2019

The Race Towards Smart Spaces: The Future of Working and Living
23 May 2018

In May 2018 the Information and Communications Technology & Built Environment Committees jointly brought together a distinguished panel of leading architects, technology and real estate corporations to discuss what our future working and living spaces will be like. The event was held in Funan’s one-of-a-kind experiential showsuite.

Changing Landscapes:
The Brain without Nature
5 September 2018

This event, organised by our Sustainability & Responsibility Committee, began with a short walk through Singapore Botanic Gardens, led by Caroline Essame of Create:CATT and Nigel Taylor, Director Singapore Botanic Gardens, to encourage everyone to destress after the working day. Of the 54% of attendees who reported feeling stressed or very stressed in our poll before the walk, none were feeling at all stressed after.






















The conversation moved to a lively panel-led discussion which covered topics such as the level of exposure to nature during our childhoods; whether we feel we are getting enough exposure to nature in our lives currently; and after a general consensus that we are not, what we can do to change this for the future. Overall it was felt that the level of exposure to nature during our childhood was in direct correlation to how strongly we feel about the need to protect the nature around us now, and the level of comfort we get from our natural surroundings. We soon realised that the group were all in strong agreement on the benefits of nature on our health and well-being, and the discussion turned quickly to what we can do to encourage others to value our natural surroundings in the same way.

Cai Bingyu, from the GroundUp Initiative shared that a large proportion of young Singaporeans had little to no exposure to nature whilst growing up, which led to many feeling afraid when exposed to nature or wildlife. He shared the exciting work that his team are doing to encourage more Singaporeans to experience nature first-hand and how to get involved in their community projects.

Nigel Taylor shared insights into the work that Singapore Botanic Gardens is doing to safeguard species and essential knowledge for future generations in Singapore’s Ethnobotany Garden. He also detailed some of the government initiatives to ensure that nature areas are protected or recreated elsewhere during city redevelopment projects.
Gennadij Kreukniet from DNV GL gave the group some examples of how other cities around the world have introduced nature to enhance the lives of citizens.

Caroline Essame’s experience as an Occupational Therapist added a clinical angle to the discussion. She explained some of the real disadvantages to being underexposed to nature and shared some top tips on how we can incorporate nature into our lives a little more each day.