October 2022
October 10-12, 2022, the World Economic Forum hosted the 2nd annual Urban Transformation Summit in Detroit, bringing together visionary leaders from business, government, civil society, media and philanthropy to forge new partnerships, showcase innovative solutions and mobilize action in support of more sustainable and inclusive cities and urban economies.
Fluxus is a member of the Forum’s Taskforce on “The Future of Real Estate: Digital Transformation” to accelerate technology adoption to deliver value to the real estate sector, and “The Future of Real Estate: Attainable Housing” to explore the role of attainable housing in the wider residential market, its role in helping preserve solvency in the wider economy and the policy and financing solutions needed to spur investment in this critical market segment. The Discussion Series of the Taskforce will also explore how this asset class can align with ESG investment criteria and the importance of recognizing Attainable Housing as a public benefit.
Fluxus CEO Fanyu Lin spoke at the Panel Discussion “Combatting the Affordability Crisis” moderated by Jonathan Reckford, Chief Executive Officer of Habitat for Humanity, together with Antoine Bryant, Director of Planning and Development Department, City of Detroit, and Kimberly Rustem, Director of Health Equity Strategy and Innovation, CVS Health Corporation.
In a study of 200 cities globally, 90% were found to be unaffordable to live in, with the average home costing more than three times the average income. Rising costs of housing are further exacerbated by increased energy costs, growing costs of food, and inflation. The panel discussed how government and private sector leaders are tackling the housing crisis, combatting growing income inequality, and enabling more affordable urban communities.
Fanyu talked about the sources of housing affordability challenges, the expected impacts of quantitative tightening on the housing market, and the vision to create a sustainable market to fill the multi-trillion dollar global affordable housing gap by implementing new technologies to accelerate productivity and cooperation across core industries throughout home delivery value chain. Together with other interdisciplinary efforts, a paradigm shift would be made possible to enable billions of the world’s population to participate in the housing market as full economic citizens.
At the Strategy Session “Adapting to Hybrid Models of Work”, moderated by Hazem Galal, Partner, Global Leader for Cities and Local Government, PwC, Fluxus’ Fanyu Lin gave remarks together with Jeremy Kelly, Director of Global Research at JLL, Nick Axford, Chief Economist of Avison Young, and Josh White, Director of City and Regional Planning, City of Calgary, followed by discussions about Workspace and Technology led by Russell Smith, Director of Market Strategy at Cisco, and Central Business District led by Jacqueline Lu, Founder of Helpful Places, and Katherine Lang, Senior Knowledge Lawyer of Baker McKenzie.
Fanyu shared insights and case studies on design and the role of technology in enabling hybrid models and return on investment. Even though it takes time to collect the data to demonstrate the RoI according to the traditional balance sheets, as the world embraces ESG as a holistic financing, with the transition from balance sheet to value sheet, we can be more confident and optimistic about those RoIs by incorporating the values and measurable impacts from Environmental, Social and Governance dimensions. From an investment and asset management perspective, with the current economic headwinds, there is a risk of significant contraction in the markets. However, the demand for ESG investment is outstripping supply, as asset managers and institutional investors are capturing the shift to ESG as a counter-balance. We should leverage this in transforming the future of office assets as well, to yield higher returns in a more holistic way.
Read more about the Urban Transformation Hub. View Summit photos.
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