Remote working and sustainable shopping: two polls have found silver linings amidst the coronorvirus clouds

Consumers and business leaders have had to adapt to Covid-19. Some of the changes are beneficial and surveys suggests they could prove permanent, writes James Moore

Food waste is a major contributor to climate change (iStock)

Back in 2008, Gordon Brown, a prime minister who looks better by the day, launched a campaign aimed at cutting the millions of tons of food waste Britain produces every year.

He was, of course, mocked for his trouble by many of the usual suspects. How dare the PM make a fuss about something recognised as a major contributor to catastrophic climate change when there are so many more important issues he should be tackling!

Belatedly it seems to be dawning on people that he might have had a point. There’s nothing like a global pandemic to concentrate minds.

One economic activity Covid-19 hasn’t put the brakes on is the proliferation of polls. The latest, from Accenture, which is published today, demonstrates that this isn’t just true in a Britain shaken by shortages and empty supermarket shelves.

Accenture’s research was conducted among 3,074 people across 15 markets, including the UK, the US, Japan, France and Germany. The polling took place in April, after many countries had instituted lockdowns. It found 64 per cent of those taking part had sought to limit food waste and were planning to continue doing so going forward.

Some 45 per cent were also making more sustainable shopping choices, another change they planned to make permanent.

A second poll published on Saturday, this time for the Institute of Directors (IoD), suggests that some of the adaptations forced upon businesses will also stick. They too could prove beneficial. One of those is the widespread adoption of remote working.

It came after Barclays boss Jes Staley mused about the end of cramming 7,000 people into gigantic, and expensive, glass and steel buildings in London when the bank reported its results last week. Change is surely a-coming.

The IoD said four out of ten of the 500 or so members it spoke to said they had made adjustments to their operations that they intended to keep in place after the lockdown has been eased, or lifted.

Remote working is, of course, generally more flexible than office-based employment.

The pandemic may have thus provided the nudge necessary to persuade some business chiefs, who’d been reluctant to entertain it, to take the plunge.

As well as easing the rush hour congestion on Britain’s pollution choked roads, this should assist families. Could it also narrow the gender pay gap? That remains to be seen, but flexible working is something groups campaigning in that space have been calling for.

There isn’t much to feel optimistic about when the world is being stalked by a killer virus that has ushered in a brutal global recession, while dismal leaders make excuses, indulge twisted conspiracy theorists and try to avoid taking responsibility for their poor handling of the crisis.

But it has afforded a battered global environment some breathing space, with the benefits ranging from improved air quality in big cities to dolphins performing aerobatics in places where they haven’t been seen for years, and it has also seen some businesses entertaining some more progressive employment practices than they had previously.

If these surveys are correct, and some of the benefits prove lasting, I suppose it would count as something of a silver lining at a time when the clouds are dark indeed.