Can we take positive lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic?

From every tragedy there is always something we can learn, something we can do differently to at least give some positive side effect. In this blog post we are going to look at the positive things that have come from this pandemic and how we can learn and change what we do to make the world a better place.

Air traffic

According to Eurocontrol, air traffic is down by more than 80% compared to this time last year.

The current pandemic really highlights our reliance on the air industry for getting around. The aviation industry has actually made significant improvements in efficiency however this is continually eclipsed by the growth in air traffic volume. Before the pandemic, 2020 was expected to set a new record in the number of scheduled passengers with over 4.72 billion, around 137% higher than in 2004. It is projected to double in the next 20 years, despite only 20% of the global population setting foot on an airplane.

We have seen year on year growth in passenger numbers for decades, the last couple of months however have seen a sharp fall in traffic, this is because of the pandemic, not because people have changed their preferences on flying. There is however some glimmers of optimism, pre COVID-19 the environment was very much in the news thanks to a real change in public opinion spurred on by campaigners like Greta Thunberg who were inspiring the younger generation. Importantly this was starting to change the voices of politicians (although perhaps not yet their actions), in France short haul internal flights were proposed to be banned if there was alternative rail route that existed. Before the pandemic we talked about changes like this, but there was a general acceptance that things will change but it will be slowly, so banning internal flights made sense as there is an easy, viable, cheap and less polluting alternative. However since the pandemic started we have been able to do many things we thought would be possible sometime in the future, so perhaps we can take the French idea and move it forward faster and look at genuine alternatives to international flights.

Less Road Traffic

While the majority of the UK population will only use flights for annual holidays, a very large portion will use their car every day. according to the RAC 57% commute in a car or van, with the average commute by car being 26 minutes. Since the lockdown the number of cars on the road has fallen dramatically. This has a number of benefits, firstly the air pollution levels in cities are much lower something which we know causes deaths. According to a report from the Major of London nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in London have almost halved.

And those that are still having to use their car to get to work are contributing significantly less pollution because they aren’t stopping and starting in heavy traffic, cars are much less polluting when traveling at a constant steady speed, and of course journey times are much shorter.

So how could this influence how people commute after the pandemic? Unfortunately it may result in less people using public transport until memories of the virus have faded but hopefully people will see the futility of driving to work and then following the exact same journey in reverse every day. People who had to drive during the pandemic will see just how much busier it is and may question why they are doing it. The biggest effect it may have is employers and employees realising they don’t need to be in work all the time and can do their job just as well from home.

Working from Home

As mentioned above people may see the futility of their drive in, but also those who use public transport will likely feel the same, if not even more so when they have to return to busy tubes, busses and trains.

According to a survey from Total Jobs the average UK worker commutes 620 miles a month, and spends more than £1,700 a year travelling to work, so by the time they retire they will spend over £135k and will travel the equivalent distance to circumnavigate the globe 13 times! Seeing it like this raises questions of the real need to do this, must we pay this much money, add this much CO2 to the atmosphere and travel this far only to end up in the same place we started off at?

The average commute time is just under one hour in the UK, so just imagine having an extra hour a day, imagine just what you could do, even if it just meant you got half an hour more sleep a day, this would actually have a very positive effect on mental and physical health.
You can find out for yourself how much your commute costs you.

With all of the modern communication tools that were right in front of us all this time which offices around the country have now taken advantage of we have realised how easily we can work productively from home.

Working from home can help us achieve a better work-life balance and can even help us eat healthier, rushing to work and back can limit your opportunity to eat healthy food, how many unhealthy sandwiches have you had to eat because your choices and time were limited? And that Is before you even consider office snacks!

Of course everyone is different, some people don’t like working alone from home, so a balance has to be struck, there is always benefit of face to face contact so a sensible and flexible approach will be beneficial to the health of employees and the business employing them. Becoming greener is rarely and all or nothing, in a similar way to meat consumption, the answer may not be to get everyone to go vegan, but to encourage those that don’t want to just consume less, this would make a huge difference, just as commuting just two days a week less would have a huge effect.

It’s not just employees that benefit, businesses can make significant savings on office space, according to a Stanford Study, employees that work from home are 13% more productive compared to their in-office counterparts. Employees that work from home will take fewer sick days, if they are mildly sick they may be able to continue to work from home, and don’t pass the risk of passing on any illness to other employees.

Exercise and Cycling

With much of the workforce being furloughed, and at the same time only being able to leave the house to shop for essentials or get exercise, people have been looking at ways to keep fit. Gyms have been shut so there has been a huge rise the numbers of people taking up cycling, running and yoga. The lockdown has given people plenty of time to think so there is nothing better than yoga to help relax the mind and stay fit and taking things slower to appreciate the world around you.

When the UK lockdown was announced a list of shops which would be able to stay open were announced, cycle shops was one of these. As a result there has been a explosion of interest in bikes and cycling. Cycling is a great way to keep fit without being too stressful on your joints, and it can also have a very positive effect on mental health. With the interest in cycling on the up, this is the perfect time to get people switched to cycling to work and the government has announced £2 billion package to create a new ear for cycling and walking. The fund will go to local authorities across the country to help make it easier for people to use bikes to get around – including Greater Manchester, which wants to create 150 miles of protected cycle track, and Transport for London, which plans a “bike tube” network above Underground lines.

With commuters inevitably wary of mixing closely to other people on public transport this is a golden opportunity to make the switch to pollution free transport.

Gardening

It’s no surprise gardening is very popular now. Gardening has so many benefits, for mental health is wonderful, putting us in touch with nature, getting us outside and helping us relax. There is another major positive with it, and that is wildlife. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a nice big green garden to enjoy, but people have made use of the space they have to bring a bit of green into their lives. With the increasing amount of concrete surrounding us, it isn’t only us who suffer, but the wildlife around us. We may think living in a city there is little wildlife, when in reality it is all around us and can be helped. Growing flowers and plants can help sustain an ecosystem, re-wilding has become a big trend in gardening, to introduce plants and flowers which can provide habitats and support wildlife. Enjoying gardening opens your eyes to the natural world around us which can only be a good thing! So instead of just gardening to make your garden look nice, do it to help the wildlife around you. Introducing a bee hotel or a hedgehog home can be a wonderful way of doing your little bit to help nature.

Trying new things

With many people being furloughed suddenly having a lot of time on their hands they have discovered all sorts of new hobbies and activities. While I’m sure many will have taken the opportunity to watch more Netflix, there has certainly been a surge in people trying something new. I’ve already talked about exercise such as yoga, running and cycling but many have jumped at the opportunity to do something they have never had time to do, or have done but perhaps they didn’t see it as a productive use of time. Things like painting, knitting, photography, learning to play an instrument have all seen surges in interest. But it’s really been up to the individual, whatever you enjoy, the important thing is many people have for the first time started to enjoy and live in the moment, something our modern society has pushed us away from, making us think we must always be ‘busy’ or ‘productive’ achieving something but what this has taught us is that finding time to enjoy and appreciate life is productive in itself.

If you really want to have a goal then that’s fine, there is a whole world of learning out there, perhaps learning a new language or just learning about something completely different, history, science or technology.

Spending time with children

Whilst the lockdown has prevented us seeing many friends and family we love, for some it has meant they have spent more time with their children. Having parents work from home has been great for many children, getting more valuable time to learn and play with their parents (as long as they aren’t too distracting of course!), probably something many people will miss when things return to ‘normal’ so another driver to change things for the better in the future. Whilst it has been hard to see other people outside your household a surprising number of people are actually saying it has brought them closer to those they can’t see, as they realise what is truly valuable in life we have got much better at using technology to communicate, having services like Zoom, Skype and Facetime available many people have used these to contact and stay in touch with people they wouldn’t normally be able to see often anyway due to distance.

Time to get things done

Of course it’s not all the new creating things people have got done, it has been a time to get all those little things that have needed doing for a while done, all the little DIY jobs, fixing that table, getting the cupboard sorted out etc. There has also been an increase in people switching their energy supplier. With the rise in the profile of the climate crisis before the pandemic many people were thinking about how they can be greener and switching energy supplier is a great way to do this, but for many it is one of those things they will get round to eventually. With many people having more time available they have decided to get round to it and not just switch to save money, but to do something positive as well and switch to a renewable supplier like Ecotricity. If you are thinking about switching you can get a £50 Ethical Superstore voucher if you go through this link or quote ETH1 if you call.

People are used to switching energy providers, but one switch that might seem a bit more daunting is changing your bank. Banks don’t have the best reputation, do you really know where you money is being invested with one of the big four banks? Since the 2016 Paris Agreement was adopted in 2016 the UK’s top banks have poured £150 million into financing the fossil fuel industry. Most people don’t really consider what is happening to their savings, where it is being invested and what is happening as a result. Well that is all just fine for the big banks as they would rather you didn’t! The key is all they are looking to do is make more money, from their the less you know about the areas they invest in and the house of cards they sit on, the better.

There are banks such as Triodos who only lend your money to people and organisations that work to make the world a better place and have a positive impact on the environment.

The only way you can know if your money isn’t being used for things you are not comfortable with morally is to use a transparent bank, Triodos will list every single organisation they lend money to and it is easily searchable on their site.

If you switch to Triodos now you can get a £40 Ethical Superstore voucher when you deposit £100 into your new account.

What and who is really important to society

We live in a society where people’s value is often judged by what they earn. New rules on immigration may be an indication of this, with those who have a job which pays less than £20,480 being classed as ‘unskilled’ and if below £25,600 they must fill other criteria to justify themselves. Many care workers are low paid, but does this make their place in society less valuable? Are delivery drivers not valuable to society?

Suddenly the value of people has become more apparent, the pandemic has forced us to realise that everyone is valuable in society, whether their job is ‘skilled’ or not, whether they earn a huge salary or are earning the minimum wage we all are part of a system that works to support everyone. Many people who have felt undervalued are being classed as key workers as we realise how important the role they play is to the rest of us, whether it is delivering food, stacking shelves, keeping warehouses running or keeping us moving.
Suddenly we are being more appreciative of those who work long hours to protect us such as nurses and doctors, but it’s also all of the support staff, the cleaners in hospitals are doing just as much as the doctors to prevent the spread of the virus. Hopefully from seeing the hidden value in so many people’s work we are collectively valuing these people as they should be.
Carers have been under huge pressure especially those in care homes who have been overlooked by society and given low pages, it is only now their true value is being seen. Do we really need to pay that big CEO a huge wage because they are so much more valuable than the rest of the workforce? In the UK bosses earn 117 times the average worker in their business, but do they really contribute 117 times as much and crucially can they do their job without relying on the hard work of those below them? Perhaps this will come as a positive form the pandemic and there will be a drive to make wages fairer and reflect people’s true value in society. The protests in the US as the result of the death of George Floyd, have brought the issue of racism being imbedded into society and highlighted the issue further across the world. Perhaps this will help create a fairer society where people aren’t put at a disadvantage because of the colour of their skin.
After some years of division in the country with bitter arguments about Brexit and seemingly any other debate turning nasty argument. From the outset with the lockdown a real sense of community has grown, straight away people were offering to do shopping for their elderly neighbours, raising money where they could, over 750,000 people signed up to volunteer to help the NHS, Captain Tom raising almost £33 million and don’t forget the millions of people every Thursday clapping for the NHS and key workers. Let’s hope this sense of community continues before we get bogged down in confrontational politics and bad news!

What now?

So what do we do now, well first of all it is up to us the public not to forget what we have learned from this and to keep the sense of community and caring strong so it becomes the new norm.

For the government, now is the time to reset the economy. This crisis has exposed weaknesses in our economy and society which we need to fix so we can cope better with a crisis like this in the future. The word ‘unprecedented’ has reached unprecedented levels of usage in the last few months however a pandemic is not unprecedented, it is not something new, it is something we’ve known about for centuries. We couldn’t have predicted one would happen in 2020 but we could be sure one would happen at some point. It wouldn’t have been unreasonable to expect there was some kind of plan already written up for what we would do if a new deadly virus emerged, but it seemed there was no plan. We need to stop thinking in the short term and think about the future, what will change, how we can prepare for it and how we can better plan. This is perhaps why little action has been taken on the climate crisis because we cannot allocate funds and resources to something that isn’t directly in front of us today. Climate change has been known about for years, the plastic problem in the ocean is not something we have just discovered, so it is up to the government to act on these and not wait for the public to start demanding action after years of inaction.

It is hard for politicians to justify spending money on something that is long term, that the public can’t necessarily see over something relevant today, but all it takes is some leadership.

We have been able to keep many people in work despite the lockdown with the furlough scheme which was put in place but there are many people who have fallen into the cracks in this system. There is a very real chance the economy is going to face a recession and yet more people will fall through the cracks. We need to have a balanced focus on how we rebuild out economy.

Our friends at Triodos have set out five pillars of a new economy which we are 100% behind:

1 – Inclusive: To focus not purely on profit and growth, but one where companies balance the interests of investors, employees, society and future generations  
2 – Resilient: Instead of building the economy on a single goal of maximising profit which encourages companies to build debt making the whole economy vulnerable, we need to invest in enough buffers so we can cope with the next crisis.
3 – Low Carbon: Economic growth and the development of climate policy should be mutually reinforcing.
4 – Balanced: For years the main goal of the global food system is to produce as much food as possible for the lowest possible price. We need to rely more on local and more diverse food production.
5 – Shared Values: Taxpayer’s money is community money, it belongs to us. Money invested in the economy of the future and in a society that is genuinely there for all. For the ‘we’ and less for the ‘me’.
You can read more on the Triodos site.