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Ikea’s virtual rewilding experience for homebodies

Ikea virtual greenhouse

The Netherlands – Ikea is running a series of masterclasses, live talks and interactive experiences as part of Dutch Design Week, through a concept dubbed the Virtual Greenhouse.

Featuring expert creatives in food, wellbeing, sustainability and botany, the Virtual Greenhouse platform aims to help cultivate a more sustainable and balanced life at home. From mood flowers to urban foraging and caring for bees, it recognises the importance of rewilding with the home as a central space for remaining calm and centred.

With the pandemic a catalyst for such isolation, Ikea recognises the importance of connecting with nature for those who live in cities and is educating customers by providing practical insights on plant care, tips for purifying water and how-to videos for making terrariums.

Prompting a more balanced and conscious approach to living, Ikea’s Urban Rewilding initiative encourages greater synergy with the natural world.

A footwear collection celebrating Slack

Cole Haan and Slack

US – Lifestyle brand Cole Haan has partnered with business communication platform Slack to launch a footwear collection developed entirely remotely.

The limited-edition collection, Generation Zerøgrand, which features the Slack colour palette and logo in four colourways, aims to celebrate the communication platform, which has been relied on for remote collaboration by many workplaces since the pandemic began. Both brands corresponded virtually to create the collection, with the design process taking place on Slack.

During the pandemic period, Slack has allowed the lifestyle brand to maintain productivity. David Maddocks, brand president of Cole Haan, explains the collaboration further, highlighting that ‘Slack's innovative capabilities have proven to be a valuable tool and asset for our company’.

As the inter-Covid workplace continues to evolve, remote working technology is taking a new, more valuable place in our lives. For more, explore our Market report, Reworking The Workplace.

United Airlines expands into work-ation packages

US – Meeting and event company Peerspace is teaming up with United Airlines to launch travel bundles for remote working.

The collaboration has launched the Team Together programme, offering companies tiered packages that include United round-trip flights, short-term workspace rentals and collaborative spaces for employees to gather and work together. Seizing the opportunity provided by a widespread shift to remote working practices among global companies, the package is aimed at professionals whose jobs require long-distance travel in a safe and secure way.

‘We’re an airline; we’re not in the office space business or the meeting space business. But how can we solve that problem of having people come together safely?' asks BJ Youngerman, market strategy lead at United.

To see how Bleisure is changing how we travel, work and play, look out for our forthcoming microtrend on Wandering Workers.

Remote Working by XPS

Stat: UK Boomers look to intergenerational financial planning

Deutsche Telekom in collaboration with Saatchi & Saatchi and Billie Eillish, Germany

Research by YouGov for Quilter shows that 48% of Baby Boomers in the UK have accrued enough personal wealth that they can afford to give money to family members before they die. Of this group, 40% would prefer to give many smaller gifts, while 33% would prefer larger one-off wealth transfers.

The statistics reveal the vast scale of the market for wealth transfer planning and lifetime gifting among Boomers, especially with many members of the Millennial and Gen Z generations struggling to afford a stable lifestyle. ‘The scale of intergenerational wealth planning set to take place over the coming decades is vast,' explains Ian Browne, retirement planning expert at Quilter. ‘This data shows that in the Baby Boomer generation there are a huge number of affluent families that are interested in lifetime gifting in order to give younger generations a financial boost.’

As Browne suggested, we can expect to see more inter-generational support – rather than tension – as we move into the 2020s. For more on why generations must align paths, read our Q&A with Wilson Oryema, co-founder of Regenerative Futures.