Home Sweet Home: Solutions for Climate-Resilient Housing
In this episode of 2050 Investors, we go house hunting with Kokou Agbo-Bloua and take a deep dive into the past, present, and future of housing.
Current estimates put the total number of houses at around 2 billion and by 2050, we will need to house around 10 billion people, all looking for familiarity, belonging, comfort and security.
How can we create sustainable homes for all, and will we adapt in time in the face of the big bad wolf of climate change?
Why do we say, "there’s no place like home"? This iconic phrase appears in "The Wizard of Oz" to remind us of the human need for familiarity, belonging and protection. Over the past centuries, our homes have followed a Darwinian process of evolution by natural selection of efficiency. From caves to skyscrapers, they’ve protected us from wild animals, natural disasters, and the changing climate.
We start off this episode with a cautionary tale of "The Three Little Pigs" : a sobering reminder of the need to build for tomorrow.
Later we embark on a historical odyssey into the history of housing across cultures — from Egyptian sun-dried bricks to the sprawling skyscrapers of New York. And finally in this episode, Kokou sits down with Ben Richford, Co-Head of Real Estate Sector Research at Societe Generale, to gain more insight into how the housing and real estate markets can strive for a fair and sustainable future.
The conversation also touches on the sector's adaptation to climate change and the predicted megatrend of urbanisation, the social aspect of the housing transition, and the economic drivers behind changes in the real estate market.