A growing chorus of business voices is calling on companies to use their experience of the COVID-19 crisis to further reduce their collective carbon footprint.

In a paper called Going Green, UBS Asset Management has said that the pandemic could “raise the urgency for greening the built environment”. It says that the coronavirus outbreak has proved that government agencies, businesses and the general public can take drastic action when risks to public safety become urgent and pressing. And although the climate emergency is not directly comparable to the current health crisis, UBS says the effects of unrestrained global warming will eventually have a significant impact on global supply chains and food production. As a result, real estate, it warns, “cannot stay business as usual”.

In order to take the next step in the fight against climate change, the report’s author, Adeline Chan, an analyst based in Singapore within the real estate and private market