What we can all learn from the ‘new normal’
ERIN MCDAID of Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust says the changes we have had to make during the pandemic – such as working from home and not taking as many foreign holidays – can be beneficial for the environment going forward
C OULD some of the changes forced on us by the pandemic be good news for the planet? After eleven months of terrible news, worry, heartache and enforced lifestyle changes, it can be hard to focus on glimmers of hope; but alongside the fast pace of the vaccination programme, I do wonder if the way our lives have changed since last March could provide a road map for more sustainable lifestyles at a critical time for the planet we all share. While no-one wants lifestyle changes to be forced upon them, real and dramatic change doesn’t often come about gradually, it usually requires an outside impetus. Many of us might plan to lose weight or take better care of ourselves, but it sometimes takes a scare or near miss to bring about the necessary change. As we emerge from the health crisis triggered by Covid-19 and plan for the much vaunted ‘new normal’ I think there is real scope for some of the changes many of us have faced during the pandemic to stick. During lockdown I’ve been filling some of my evenings and wet weekends sorting through old photographs and papers in my loft. In one of my long unopened boxes I discovered a number of ‘Your Environment’ columns I wrote for the Nottingham Post back in 1999. In one I suggested that although earlier predictions that many of us would be working from home by the 1990s had been wide of the mark – things could be about to change thanks to new-fangled emails and telephone conferencing! In another I suggested that if more of us were to holiday in the UK, we could dramatically reduce our impact on the climate. While “staycations” have had a renaissance in recent years, many of these are in addition to trips abroad and frankly there hadn’t been much in the way of a dramatic shift to home working over the twenty-odd years since I wrote the pieces. Now, our shared experience has proven beyond doubt that it’s possible for many of us to work productively from home. While the dramatic reductions in traffic levels, air and noise pollution seen during the first national lockdown might not be repeatable any time soon we mustn’t allow everything to go back to how it was without challenging and questioning. Of course we all long to be able to see friends and colleagues face-to-face and to be able to escape the four walls from time to time but surely it’s got to be worth exploring which of the positives we can carry forward. In one of the pieces from 1999 I also recognised that working from home could lead to issues of isolation and boredom, so we must also ensure that employers continue to focus on enabling employees to strike a good work-life balance as well as cutting down on unnecessary travel and providing people with flexibility to work in a way that works for them and their companies. For the moment – whilst many of us have no choice but to work from home and others are juggling home-working and home schooling – grabbing a daily dose of nature is one of the best ways to find your own happy medium. With the days getting longer and lighter and signs of spring such as snow drops and hazel catkins starting to show there will be more and more opportunities to recharge your batteries after a day spent cooped up talking to colleagues looking like a low-rent version of Celebrity Squares on Zoom or Teams.