Innovation Brief: Post-Pandemic Wellbeing
By: Connected Places Catapult
Tags: Coronavirus, Mental Health, Neuroscience, Wellbeing, Innovation

Horizon 3 — Recovery and beyond

The new opportunities answering changes in demand and enabling us to build back better

Improved Air Quality

Striking images from across the globe have shown how the air has become cleaner since countries put stringent restrictions on movement. Since lockdown started, some urban areas have seen levels of Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) drop by 30–40%. With significantly fewer people driving and taking flights and cruises, and most commercial and industrial units shut, the pandemic has proved to be an ‘accidental experiment’ to understand the effects of such shutdowns on pollution levels.

As people have experienced the steep change in air quality, they don’t want to revert to the polluted past. In a recent YouGov poll, 76% of Londoners agreed with the statement “During the lockdown, I have sensed/experienced good clean air and I don’t want to go back to the air pollution levels we previously had”.

Some cities are already embracing these opportunities. For instance, the West Midlands has pioneered the installation of 5G air quality and traffic sensors on some of its road junctions. The data generated will be used with an augmented reality phone app that will enable people to visualise concentrations of particulate matter around them in creative ways. There are also opportunities in a range of other areas. We discuss active mobility opportunities in other briefs. The transition to electric vehicles will reduce emissions, but tyre and brake dust are significant contributors to particulate pollution — another area ripe for innovative solutions.

“Wellbeing and place has been the focus of a significant amount of research over the past twenty years, yet it has never hit the top of the agenda, Covid has placed it at the top. Post-Covid places will need to innovate in the way people move, the places they work in, how they have access to green and blue spaces, across their whole life-course…we have the opportunity to rethink the way we make places.” Rachel Cooper OBE, Distinguished Professor of Design Management and Policy at Lancaster University

Conditional Bailouts

Governments have a rare chance to use the leverage of bail-out and financial support to introduce ‘green’ reforms that improve air quality and mitigate climate change.

The French government has already set a precedent. It has approved a €7bn (£6.15bn) loan to the troubled Air France, contingent on the carrier scrapping some domestic flights to reduce its emissions. The Austrian government has indicated similar moves. The EU has earmarked 25% of its €750 billion COVID recovery fund for climate action. It has also adopted a sustainable finance taxonomy to guide its spending. The taxonomy will direct private investments into technologies that further at least one of six pre-defined environmental objectives, such as climate change mitigation.

As we have highlighted in the other post-pandemic innovation briefs — the emerging consensus about post-pandemic stimulus spending is to support a green recovery. Innovations that support this have good growth opportunities.

Neuroscience in Built Environment

As we rethink our buildings’ designs and public space allocations (as discussed in the Built Environment and Public Space chapters of this Innovation Brief), new developments in neuroscience provide guidance into how design decisions can be made to maximise wellbeing, using insights into how our brains process information.

Measuring our brain responses to varying situations and applying this knowledge to the design of verbal and visual signposting of our environments can play a key role in embedding empathetic awareness among people (read more on this in our latest blog “ how neuroscience can shape a more empathetic built environment”). For instance, the Design Council’s work on providing better signage and information in hospitals has already shown a significant reduction in the levels of patient frustration and aggression in one hospital in Southampton.

In view of these emerging opportunities, Connected Places Catapult recently reissued a playbook, Neuroscience for Cities, which further provides a framework of how neuroscience research can be put into practice in cities and in doing so, outlines a number of opportunities for innovative organisations.

Green Investments

Previous estimates by IPPR have shown that there is currently a £33 billion annual public investment gap between the UK government’s planned investments and its stated goals for decarbonisation and the restoration of nature.

This investment gap represents opportunities for various ‘green’ investments which also deliver against the imperative to support jobs and growth as we reboot much of the economy. Such investments in the first instance can be targeted at job-rich, shovel-ready opportunities that also unlock long-term value. For example, lighting upgrade programs across all government buildings would create regional employment with positive domestic stimulatory impact. They would also deliver long-term savings for taxpayers through reduced electricity bills. Similarly, a program to upgrade inefficient water heating systems across the residential sector would address and reduce the second largest component of electricity bills for households.

Through its public investment and a well-designed policy environment, the government must also seek to maximise investment from the private sector. These investments would have multi-faceted benefits, including cleaner air, lesser carbon emissions and more jobs.