“We at the Green Footprint Trust want to break the spiral of silence, which is coming from not being able to perceive the enormous effect of climate change that will change the way we live. Workplaces will no longer remain on the sidelines of the fight to mitigate, adapt and advocacy as they will end up being ground zero of the calamity

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Workplaces that underwent a sea change post the pandemic are set to metamorphose further owing to climate change.

The WorkGreen Conclave – being organised by Green Footprint Trust, an endeavour of like-minded people from the real estate fraternity to spread awareness about the effects of climate change and its impact on realty, in association with Advanced Workplace Associates (AWA), a UK-based consultancy firm in Bengaluru on February 24 – seeks to create and spread awareness about the future of workplaces in the light of anticipated impact of climate change on how and where we work.

“We at the Green Footprint Trust want to break the spiral of silence, which is coming from not being able to perceive the enormous effect of climate change that will change the way we live. Workplaces will no longer remain on the sidelines of the fight to mitigate, adapt and advocacy as they will end up being ground zero of the calamity,” said Shashidhar Sharma, founder of Green Footprint Trust and coordinator of WorkGreen Conclave at a press conference in Bengaluru on Friday.

“We have a very short window of opportunity, 10-15 years, where it will be much more economically viable and cheaper to save the planet, than staying in our silos and doing nothing, while global temperature goes up past the catastrophic 2.5-3.5 degree Celsius, in our own lifetime.

We need ours and the next generation to know this, and do something about it. WorkGreen Conclave is the first step towards achieving our target of reaching out to a million people, across India and the world with this message,” Sharma said. The realty sector as well as corporates are yet to come to terms with climate change affecting workplaces, Devanshi Patel, Founder of WireNet, said.

“Buildings contribute to global warming and we as architects need to consciously work towards reducing carbon footprints. This conclave will delve into the importance of climate change at workplaces and hold a series of workshops to spread awareness about it,” Patel explained.

Seconding Patel’s thoughts was Amit Tyagi, director of Engineering at Harman International, who believes that architects need to build light and right, provide the right advice to their fraternity and work towards reducing carbon footprints. Katja Larsen, spokesperson of Green Footprint Trust, said that carbon footprints are a big problem in Russia, Europe and Sweden and people are looking at ways to mitigate it.

Ritu Sandhu Sharma, a sustainability advocate, said, “Covid has been disastrous, and poor health infrastructure has contributed to increasing deaths, likewise climate change is affecting us and workplaces need to be transformed to accommodate these changes.”