Out of the damage caused by the coronavirus are opportunities for progress, from greener businesses to societies that take care of everyone, united communities to better work-life balance. Over the coming days, we’ll be making some hopeful predictions about our collective future
We are moving into a new normal. But that doesn’t have to mean worse. Catastrophes of the kind that the coronavirus has brought are changemakers, for good and ill. Although the dark clouds typically come first, they’re followed by the silver linings – opportunities to create positive change from the ashes of disaster.
Among the damage that this pandemic has wrought, we are seeing communities collaborating to look after one another, businesses leading calls for a sustainable recovery and policymakers in more enlightened quarters prioritising green industries.
Ideas once considered radical are seeping into the mainstream. Universal basic income, for instance, is now being taken more seriously thanks to successful furlough schemes around the world during the crisis, plus a growing number of studies proving its worth.
Ideas once considered radical are seeping into the mainstream
Meanwhile, alternative food systems, such as community supported agriculture schemes or buying direct from farms, have proved resilient at keeping food on people’s plates when supermarket shelves were bare.
Green modes of transport are also emerging stronger from the crisis with governments, including the UK’s, investing in walking and cycling to help fight obesity and reduce air pollution, two things that are believed to exacerbate Covid-19.
Over the coming days, we’ll be sharing stories that uncover some of these opportunities for progress in the wake of the crisis and show the reasons to be hopeful about our collective future.
Image: Deniz Ir
