Business View Caribbean | May 2022

15 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN VOLUME 9, ISSUE 5 the region of $32 billion, or 2.5% of Indonesia’s GDP . Cayman Islands, one of the world’s lowest- lying territories with an average elevation of just seven feet above sea level, is uniquely vulnerable to variations in ocean rise. NASA’s upper threshold projections for North Sound suggest that the territory’s average elevation could be surpassed in the next century. Imagine in 100 years Cayman Islands as a series of small atolls. Even conservative estimates suggest significant human and economic impact from rising sea levels in Cayman in the coming decades. This mirrors worldwide trends, and research commissioned by RICS that has indicated many other coastal settlements around the world are vulnerable to such changes including Lagos, Tokyo, Dhaka, and Miami. Add to these existing structural dynamics such as island supply-chain vulnerability, energy dependence, and the threat to eco-tourism revenue, and it is no surprise that we hear extremely mixed reports from local respondents to RICS’s economic sentiment surveys. However, one of the most interesting insights I have read in the latest round of RICS research based in Cayman Islands was a unanimous agreement that there has been an increase in demand for flexible and local workspaces. This points to a keen desire to have access to urban spaces that are more than just cookie-cutter projects that meet a budgetary blueprint. These flexible workspaces mean shorter commutes, more efficient use of built assets, and a stronger sense of community. A vital question is what professionals working in the built environment can do to help deliver the sustainable and resilient future for Cayman, and the wider world, that we all want to see. The first step is a mindset shift toward sustainability and a recognition of its role in creating societal and market resilience as a core business principle – not an optional extra. Of course, we must not forget the scale of the challenge we face. Cities continue to consume 78% of the world’s resources and produce more than 60% of greenhouse gas emissions. We are also still on track to see two-thirds of the global population living in cities by 2050, with a $6.3 trillion investment needed to keep pace with urban development by 2030, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). These figures illustrate the centrality of built environment professionals to the management and mitigation of climate-related risk. The most recent RICS Sustainability Report and Addendum published around COP26 highlighted the gap between intent and deliverability on becoming more sustainable. In this survey, over 70% of