Latest news with #Smets
Forbes
07-04-2025
- Science
- Forbes
How Nature-Based Solutions Can Improve Indoor Air Quality
When people talk about indoor air quality, invariably the discussion soon turns to traditional heating ventilation systems and activated carbon filters. However, more and more nature-based systems are now being developed which offer a greener and healthier alternative. Green walls and moss-based filters are already on the market, but another possible interesting solution will be launched next month (May) at the Belgian pavilion at the Venice Biennale in Italy. The Building Biospheres project aims to harness the natural intelligence of plants to actively manage the pavilion's indoor climate. The installation consists of more than 200 plants and occupies the pavilion's central area beneath the skylight. The Belgian pavilion has been initiated by the Flemish government and commissioned by the Flanders Architecture Institute, presented by curator and landscape architect Bas Smets in collaboration with neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso. Smets said he has been discussing with Mancuso how to use the natural intelligence of plants to manage an indoor climate for the last 10 years in an interview. Smets said if you can understand what specific plants need to thrive in those environments to clean and regulate the temperature of the air, then they can become an 'active agent' to create an indoor climate. In a natural way these plants can help to create the artificial climates found in most of today's buildings. 'What we are proposing is not just to bring plants into a building, but to rethink the purpose of architecture,' he told me. 'In the beginning, architecture was about survival, sheltering us from the rain, wind and sun. And now again in this climate crisis, architecture should be about survival, but not just about the survival of us humans, but also of plants. We need to create a new symbiosis between us, the plants and the architecture.' Smets said Building Biospheres will be in place for six months in Venice and they have chosen trees from the sub-tropical regions, Asia, Africa and America for their biosphere as they are particularly sturdy and suitable for an indoor environment, while offering the ideal climate for humans. Mancuso said sap slow readers and dendrometers are used to monitor the health of the trees and plants. These have been installed in collaboration with the University of Ghent. The harvested data is used to activate irrigation, lighting and ventilation to create a self-regulating microclimate. In the run up to the Venice Biennale, a greenhouse at Ghent University hosted a prototype of the installation for the pavilion made with the same trees. 'The idea is to give the plants the ability to adjust all the parameters of ventilation, lighting and irrigation according to their need, and so far, it seems to be working,' Mancuso told me. Smets added when people think of indoor plants, they still have a '19th century' idea of their role. 'We put a beautiful plant in a corner, give it a bit of water, and we see it as a decoration, not as an active agent of air quality,' said Smets. 'It's almost an inversion of the Victorian greenhouses, where they built a warmer environment to import plants from tropical climates. Now, we are using those plants indoors to make spaces cooler in a warming outside climate.' Another nature-based air quality solution is being developed by the Swedish startup Adsorbi, which in January announced it had raised €1M to build pilot plant for its air purification material made from Nordic wood. The material itself is derived from Nordic tree cellulose and designed for targeted pollutant capture, including key nitrogen oxides like nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). According to Adsorbi, the material can be used in air filters, products that remove bad odours, and museums to protect works of art. Adsorbi chief executive Hanna Johansson said it is ready to offer a commercial solution which does not require the use of fossil-based materials in a statement.
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
US tech giants are rolling back DEI. Its ripple effects could spill over to Europe.
Big Tech companies like Meta and Amazon have been scaling back their DEI programs. European tech industry insiders say the continent may follow the US' lead. It could result in Europe's tech firms refining DEI policies, said Hannah Leach, partner at Antler. Big Tech is rolling back DEI measures. Europe's tech sector is yet to feel the same pressure, but industry insiders expect some of the sentiment from the US to spill over across the Atlantic. Meta and Amazon have recently scaled back their diversity initiatives amid a wider pushback against DEI in corporate America. Founders and investors in Europe see it as an omen of what could transpire on the continent. "The US can be a lead indicator of what could happen in Europe concerning diversity," said Rodney Appiah, managing partner at Cornerstone VC, a fund that backs underrepresented founders. "We recognize that we are probably four to five years away from that sort of translating into Europe and certainly into the UK." Appiah pointed to the collaborative nature of the tech and VC industry and the UK's dependency on the US tech market. "The US narrative will eventually have a contributing factor to the way in which Europe moves," he told Business Insider. Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Europe could come under pressure if big-name companies in the US continue to scale back initiatives, said Michael Smets, professor at Oxford's Said Business School. That's because "global companies have global policies," Smets told BI. "The idea that Microsoft et al. would roll back DEI programs in the US, but not in Europe, seems naïve." While Microsoft has not announced any recent rollbacks of DEI initiatives, the tech giant laid off a diversity, equity, and inclusion team in July. European tech companies would also look to their larger peers in the US for "inspiration," Smets added. "When leaders don't know how to navigate an uncertain, new situation, they are likely to copy leading organizations in their field," he explained. "Doing the same as Big Tech — whether right or wrong — is much more defensible than the bold choice of going against the grain," he added. Some US corporate heavyweights, such as JPMorgan, have said they remain committed to DEI efforts. Europe's tech companies may look to Silicon Valley for inspiration, but they have historically had different approaches to DEI. European founders and investors often cite the benefits DEI efforts can bring. "The return on investment on DEI has been forgotten about as everything has become politicized," Amardeep Parmar, cofounder of BAE HQ, a platform for British-Asian entrepreneurs, told BI. He added that hiring from underrepresented groups gives companies access to a wider talent pool. That can lead to commercial benefits, Parmar said. "People aren't so easy to fool, though, and you've got to match your words with your actions — we returned 3-8x for our sponsor organizations in 2024," he said. President Donald Trump has issued executive orders to scrap DEI offices and positions throughout the federal government and revoked a civil rights-era Equal Employment Opportunity executive order. Trump, along with Elon Musk, has instead called for an approach that prioritizes meritocracy. Radha Vyas, cofounder and CEO of travel startup Flash Pack, told BI that DEI initiatives could "level the playing field for everyone" to ensure people are promoted on merit. She pointed to data-driven processes "such as blind CV screening and merit-based promotions — that focus on skills and performance rather than subjective factors or unconscious prejudice." Europe's current political system could act as a buffer against the influx of anti-DEI sentiment in the US. "The UK political environment is quite different to several other countries because we're one of the very few Western economies that has a left-leaning government in situ, and so that provides a bit of a defense to kind of our politics descending into sort of culture wars," Appiah told BI. Still, the rise of populist parties in Europe could supercharge a wave of negative sentiment against home-grown diversity policies. Ruth Foxe Blader, general partner at Foxe Capital, pointed to the "rising legitimacy of populist movements" in Germany, France, and the UK. "It's a way of doing that negative virtue signaling that politicians perceive people want to hear right now, and it's going to take a lot of courage for leaders of large companies in Europe to contest that sentiment," Blader told BI. Some quarters of Europe's tech scene believe that any shift from existing diversity programs in Europe could be channeled into meaningful change. "We're likely to see a move away from performative, tick-the-box DEI activity and a move towards DEI actions that are material to, and specifically designed for, and properly integrated within, the businesses in question," said Hannah Leach, partner at VC firm Antler. She added that the US could also prompt more urgent conversations and reframing of what DEI initiatives do and what they should look like in Europe. Industry insiders are expecting a DEI reckoning for Europe's tech sector — it's just a matter of when. "When America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold," Appiah said. Read the original article on Business Insider
Gulf Today
26-01-2025
- Business
- Gulf Today
What your managers are really thinking about you
The Independent The modern workplace is in crisis. Last year, more than 2.82 million Britons were out of work with long-term sickness, a number that's gone up by a staggering 41 per cent over the past three years. Working from home, sicknote culture, Gen Zs 'quiet quitting' and approval-seeking millennials caught in the middle of it all: the theatre of workplace dynamics is where the drama of our upbringing, relationships, hopes, fears and generation wars all play out. While we're used to the cries of staff calling out toxic workplaces and horrible bosses — over one in three people who quit their job blames bad management — we don't hear the other side of the story. As a millennial manager, working in the third sector, I remember being shaken to my people-pleasing core when a staff member made a complaint about me. How could I — warm, supportive, an actual hand-holding angel — have possibly offended this lovely woman? How did our wires get so badly crossed? It's clear a generational shift surrounding attitudes to the workplace has emerged between employers and their staff. It's partly to do with the gap between managers' and employees' expectations of each other, says Michael Smets, a professor of management at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, who works with high-performing executives around the world. 'Managers complain about a lack of commitment, staff refusing to work long hours, the high level of expectations from superiors and demands for flexible working,' he says. 'I recently had a conversation with a partner in a large consulting firm where they had exactly those kinds of complaints about their junior lawyers. The managerial generation has often come up the ranks with the attitude, 'I'll work long nights and weekends, and I'll do whatever it takes'. With generational differences, but especially post-Covid, people's priorities have simply changed.' The irony is that having a positive relationship with your boss is crucial to career success. A 2023 McKinsey report found that positive relationships with leadership accounted for 86 per cent of employee satisfaction with interpersonal ties at work. Moreover, bosses are more likely to assess staff potential by their personal connection to them than by performance metrics. So, how can managers shift perception of workplace culture, and be better leaders? And how can the relationship between worker and boss be reset in order to make workplaces happier? One way, perhaps, is for managers to shift their thinking. Age-old stereotypes about 'lazy employees' come down to the 'attribution fallacy', says Smets. 'When we think someone is behaving a certain way, we assume it's out of choice or ill-will. They've checked out, so they're lazy.' My first instinct when hearing the complaint against me was to do the same. Here was someone who clearly didn't want to work and didn't understand the business demand of meeting KPIs (key performance indicators), I thought haughtily. Instead, Smets advises bosses to have continuing discussions with their employees to ensure that personal circumstances aren't affecting their performance. This resonated with my experience: it turned out that my staff member had a lot going on personally and I'd overlooked the cues that something was wrong. I couldn't help but sympathise: I'd been there myself, being told to hurry up with a deadline at the same time as finding out my cat had cancer. 'If only they knew what was REALLY going on,' I cried down the phone to a friend on my lunch break. It's certainly all too easy for managers to dismiss 'disruptive' employees, who may be challenging micromanagement, as simply difficult or irritating. 'Most good managers will ask themselves, 'What's going on here?' and try to get to the root of the issue,' says psychotherapist Nicola Noél. 'You'll get the odd bad manager who will take it personally, which ends ugly because that gets combative. But most managers are confused and wondering why you're trying to disrupt the team.' She says that one fraught relationship can affect the morale of the whole group. 'It affects the team's performance, then the profit line. When there is pushback against management, it can resemble splitting the team. So, you may get someone who is contentious in team meetings who will almost want people to start taking sides.' It may seem obvious, but the main thing a manager wants is for you to do your job. 'It's not a great place to be when you're a manager, and you've got a bigger goal and people don't want to get on board with it,' says Merrisha Gordon, who has over 20 years of experience in management across NHS hospitals and is now a career coach. 'For example, if someone is constantly late, it has a ripple effect. The reality is that if people are not doing the job that they need to be there to do, there are repercussions.'
